


floating on your back

by ohthelinsanity



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, implied Gou/Makoto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 07:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 27,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2340242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohthelinsanity/pseuds/ohthelinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Haru is 23, he becomes a parent under less than ideal circumstances. Raising Makoto's daughter isn't so bad, though. Not bad at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [仰面漂浮](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5106128) by [our_flame_never_goes_out](https://archiveofourown.org/users/our_flame_never_goes_out/pseuds/our_flame_never_goes_out)



“Haru? Haru! Haru, wake up!”

Haru tried to ignore the small fingers poking into his side and cheek. “Go bother Rin,” he grunted, turning on to his other side to face the wall.

There was giggling and Haru felt the weight of a four year old climb onto his bed and press into his side. “Uncle already went for his run. He told me to wake you up and you’d make breakfast this morning!”

_Damn Rin._

Sighing, Haru turned on his back and let Minori lay on his chest. Eyes still closed, he laid a hand on the back of her skull and hoped maybe she’d go back to sleep and they could deal with breakfast in another hour. “I’ll get up soon,” he murmured.

“Uncle left out fresh fish this morning.”

Haru’s eyes snapped open. “I’m awake,” he announced coolly, and Minori giggled as Haru scooted her off the bed.

Minori was quick to grab her little apron off her hook and tie it around her, determined as always to help Haru with making meals. Tying his own apron over his flannel pajama bottoms, he used one foot to nudge her stool in front of the counter. “What do you want to have with fish?” he asked.

Excitedly, she bounced on her plastic stool. “Can we do those little sandwiches? With the toast?”

“Beetroot salsa?” he asked as a means of clarification, and she nodded enthusiastically. “Sure. You handle the toast.”

As she grabbed the fresh bread out of the cupboard, Minori asked, “Can I cut the apples?”

Last time she tried to help him cut fruits and vegetables, he got a tongue lashing from Rin because she’d accidentally cut her finger. But how else was she going to learn? “You can. But you have to be much more careful this time.”

“I will!” she promised.

The sandwiches weren’t much of breakfast food, but they were quick and tasty, and Minori had even managed to keep her own blood off the counters this time, so overall a success in Haru’s opinion. They ate off the coffee table in front of the television while she pestered him to take her to the pool this afternoon, since it was a weekend. “You can come along,” he promised, and she squealed in delight. Minori adored going to his and Rin’s practices, especially with all the buzz about the upcoming Olympics in Japan. “But first, you need to work on your penmanship.”

She pouted, and it reminded him of Rin. “I can do it later.”

“We have a few minutes,” he cleared the table off their plates. “Your teacher said you were the only one who can’t write their name yet.”

Minori pouted a little more, and he saw the beginnings of tears prickling in her eyes. She was much too like her uncle. “I know you can do it,” Haru told her, “I just don’t think you’ve practiced enough. So we’re practicing now.”

She didn’t put much fuss up after that, more determined than upset. She crawled into his lap and Haru waited patiently for her to scrawl her name out: M-I-N-O-R-I.

It looked pretty good to him, so he figured it must be her last name. “Go on, give it a try.”

It took longer than her first name, but eventually she scrawled out: N-A-N-A-S-E, with the “S” being backwards.

“How’s that?” Minori asked, craning her head up to look at him; he kept his eyes off her, and on the paper.

“You’ve spelled it correctly, but, that’s my last name,” Haru explained blandly, hoping that by some miracle that would explain everything.

“I know. So, doesn’t that mean it’s mine now, too?”

He didn’t know what to say. Children were not his expertise, they never were, and Haru spent every day of the last two months wondering why Minori wasn’t just left solely with Rin like any other normal family would do. Why split the custody between Rin and _him._ Why on earth was his longtime friend so adamant about making sure _Haru_ helped raise her?

“Not exactly,” Haru mumbled quietly, grasping her hand in his while he guided the pen across the paper, helping her spell.

_Minori Tachibana_

 

* * *

 

Rin returned from his run with a sharp toothed smile and enough sweat for Minori to swim right then and there. “I see the fish was enough to get Haru up this morning,” he announced, sniffing the air and smelling the evidence. “Did you make any for me?”

Haru grunted, mostly out of frustration in Minori’s squirming while he tried to pathetically braid her hair. Rin was going to have to fix it later. “No. You don’t like fish for breakfast.”

It was true, but Rin still acted affronted. “Still. Would it _kill_ you to be considerate every once in a while?”

“Probably. You know what kindness does to my blood-sugar level.” he deadpanned, and his niece giggled.

Choking back a few chortles of laughter, Rin wandered to their kitchen to make himself a protein shake. “Haru, you want one too?”

“I already ate.”

“Yeah, and you strayed from the diet plan I made you.”

“You let me.”

“The Olympics are in a few months.”

Haru paused, eyes drifting to the wall perpendicular to their television set. When they had gone to Rio three years ago, Haru and Rin each came back with one silver medal from their 4 x 100 freestyle relay and they had hung it up on display with a photograph in between.

Rin had been pestering him to make sure the two of them came back with gold for Japan before they retired.

“Got to be in tip top shape,” Rin reminded him when he noticed his mind had begun to wander.

Immersing himself back to the present, Haru stole a glance with Minori. “I’ll split one with her.”

Minori obviously didn’t need a protein shake as strong as he was making, but letting her have half couldn’t so much harm. Maybe she’d have enough energy to go swimming in the public pool while they were training for the afternoon. “Fine, fine. Then I’m assuming it’s going to need peanut butter, yes?”

“Yes, uncle! Thank you!”

Rin cocked his head towards the kitchen. “C’mon pipsqueak, you can help me make it before Haruka goes for his run.”

Swimming for training, Haru didn’t mind, but running wasn’t his favorite thing, especially in the morning. He much preferred to run at night. But he knew how important their fitness regime was this close to a home Olympics game, so he didn’t put up a fuss. “I’m going to do that kilometer extension you recommended and just meet you at the train station at 7.”

“Don’t do the stairs if it’s not light enough outside.”

“Yeah,” Haru agreed quietly as he wandered to Rin’s bedroom. “I’m borrowing your under armour.”

“It’s not _clean!”_ Rin barked from the kitchen, and he could picture his toothy scowl.

“I don’t care, it’s more comfortable.”

“Ugh, whatever. Minori, Haru is _disgusting.”_

 

* * *

 

Minori loved her job at the aquatic center.

When Haru and Rin’s coaches learned of their new responsibility after the funerals, they were very understanding in allowing Minori to tag along to practices, meets, and whatever else necessary to make sure the two swimmers kept up with their regimes to be able to compete for their last Olympics on home turf in 2020. At first, they offered to put Minori in swimming lessons at another pool at the center, but Haru refused—he wanted to teach her himself, and luckily Rin agreed. Instead, Minori’s very special and important task was an old Tachibana tradition: helping the swimmers out of the pool when it was time for a break.

All of the other swimmer’s adored her; she was pretty cute with her dull red hair and bright green eyes, and they couldn’t resist to see her light up when she “helped” them with their Olympic training, even if it was something as simple as holding their hands while they got out of the pool.

“Oi! Minori-chaaaaan!” Kyo, a breaststroke specialist called from the far pool lane. “I’m so tired, it’s time for a break! Can you help me out?”

Minori skipped over and rolled up her sleeves as she crawled to the pool’s edge. From the end of his own lane, Haru watched through his purple-tinted googles as Minori pulled him out of the pool, Kyo doing most of the work with his left arm. But nonetheless, he gave the little a girl a dazzling smile and a thumbs up when he was out. “Thanks!”

“You’re welcome!” She beamed, flashing him a grin. He ruffled her hair, ruining her braid, before he went walked off to the bench to join Rin and a few other swimmers.

Haru was the last one in the pool, as usual. “Minori,” he called, and she came running over, slowing herself to a walk when Haru gently chided her that she shouldn’t be running by the edge of the pool. He waited for her to get back on her knees and extend her hand.

Just like Makoto did all those years ago.

“You were really fast today, Haru-chan!” There was a desire for him to tell her to “lay off the chan” but quite frankly, he didn’t mind. If he was being honest, he missed it, if only because he normally didn’t get to hear it anymore.

Unlike Kyo, Haru did his best to let Minori pull him out of the pool to the best of her ability without straining herself. Over the last few months, he had mastered making it look believable to her, and after two good tugs he discreetly used his other limbs to help him climb out of the pool. “How fast was I?” he asked. He always waited for the end of the day for Minori to grab his clipboard and tell him what times his coach had recorded for him.

“Fast! An...an eighth of a second faster on your personal best! That's what your coach said.”

“Oh?” That really wasn’t too bad of an improvement at all. “Well, that’s good.”

“Are you going to get a gold medal at the Olympics?”

“I’m going to try.” Haru grabbed his towel and started to dry his hair. “What? Do you not think I can do it?”

Her eyes went wide with worry, afraid that Haru didn’t find her supportive. “No! I think you can! You’re a very fast swimmer.” She looked left and right and patted on his jammers, waiting for Haru to kneel down in front of her so she could share a secret. “You’re even a little faster than Uncle.”

“That’s not a secret, you know. Rin knows I’m faster than him.”

“Oi! I heard that.”

 

* * *

 

They were on the ride home when she asked a question no one had asked Haru for the past year since he had started a new training regime. “Haru, why are you swimming backstroke?”

Rin stiffened a little in his seat, and Haru could tell from the gnawing on his lip that he couldn’t decide if he should deflect the conversation, or use it to his advantage to get the answer he had been begging for months as well. “Rin wanted me to do some more individual events in the Olympics, so I picked backstroke so go along with freestyle.”

Minori still looked confused. “But Mommy and Daddy used to say you only swim  _freestyle._ They said you’d _never_ swim any other way!”

“That’s true,” Haru admitted, and Rin turned his head to stare at him curiously. “But I also said I would never swim competitively, and look at what Rin has dragged me into.”

“You picked this,” Rin grumbled, and Haru granted him a light smile to prove he was only teasing.

“It’s only…” Normally, Haru was very well focused on not needlessly talking, but he had to pause to find just the words he wanted to say. “…a new goal. It’s a new dream, Minori. To swim backstroke at the Olympics. That’s all.”

Rin huffed amusedly, reaching over to pet at his niece’s hair. “Someone’s gotten _verbose.”_

Haru leaned into the window of the train, watching as the scenery whipped by—nothing but a concrete city. He missed the ocean and Iwatobi, but at least this way the familiarity was gone. He always dreaded a day when everything would be like high school and he’d turn to expect Makoto in his school uniform dozing off on his backpack. “I’ve been living with you for years, the long-winded speeches and dream talks were bound to show up eventually.”

“Too bad they aren’t as good as mine.”

Haru smirked. “There it is. Another far-fetched dream of yours.”

“…God you’re _annoying,”_ and Minori giggled.

"At least I haven't picked up on your crying. Right, Minori?"

"Did I mention  _really_ annoying?"


	2. Chapter 2

“Nagisa, I really don’t think that your swimsuit designs are well-suited for Olympic athletes.”

“Ehh? Rei, my swimsuits are, to use your phrase, _beautiful._ Any Olympic athlete would be honored to wear them. I even showed them to Rin, and he said he’d wear them if the Olympic committee let him!”

“Rin’s sense of style is…how should I put this…not always very tasteful.”

“What! He always wears the coolest clothes!”

“…did you ask Haruka what he thought of your designs?”

“It doesn’t matter what Haru thinks, since he’s a big mean—“

From her spot between Nagisa and Rei, Minori shushed them loudly among the already buzzing Olympic arena. “Be quiet! They’re going to do the 200 meter backstroke next!”

“Oh? What’s particularly exciting? Is Japan supposed to win?” Rei pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and tried to read the board of the line-up for the final heat. “W-what?!” he yelped, once he saw the name under Lane 8. “Haruka’s swimming backstroke!?”

“WHAT?” Nagisa screeched, loud enough to turn a few heads. He made a spectacle of yanking Rei’s glasses of his face and putting them on to look at the board. “Since when does Haru swim _backstroke!?”_

“For my dad!”

Stunned, Rei and Nagisa looked down at Minori. “I think he wants to do it since Daddy died,” she continued. “I don’t really know why, but that was his favorite stroke, right?”

“Yes,” Rei said softly. “That’s correct.”

“I heard him and Uncle Rin talking about it one night,” she scrunched her nose, trying to recall all the details. “He said it was letting Daddy know he could handle change, no matter how hard it was.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what he means.”

“I think I do, Minori-chan,” Nagisa whispered.

 

* * *

 

Haru was in an Olympic race, but it felt like high school practice.

All he thought about was how he wished the ceiling was open so he could see the blue skies and white clouds. He’d lived in Tokyo for so long, he was afraid he’d forget what Iwatobi looked like, how green trees and white sandy beaches were colored on a sunny day.

It was different swimming backstroke. He didn’t feel like he was necessarily in the water but on _top_ of it; a strange limbo land of being a part of the water with a view of the rest of the world above. Haru definitely wasn’t suited for backstroke but he put up a hell of a fight. It was intense as the relays he did in high school, the races with his friends, but with all the experience and strength he gained in the years past.

He finished the race so lost in his thoughts, he had no idea what he placed until Rin was running up to him and _yanking_ him out of the pool by his underarms and crushing him into a hug.

“Haru! You did it, Haru!”

He looked at the scoreboard and found by some miracle, he won the silver.

“Makoto would be so proud,” Rin whispered into his neck. “So proud, Haruka.”

When he stood on the podium to receive his medal, Haru found that even though he didn’t win first place, his silver medal shined brighter than gold.

 

* * *

 

“Let me see it, Rei! It’s my turn!”

After the swimming events were over and done, the entire team spent a few days celebrating; naturally, Rei and Nagisa came along, with an excited and exhausted Minori. They were at a sushi bar passing around all of Rin and Haru’s medals (an impressive collective five that Nagisa was having the time of his life trying to put on all at once) when Minori tugged on Haru’s sleeve. “Which one did you get for swimming Daddy’s stroke?”

It hadn’t left Haru’s neck the entire night. The silver medal was his favorite, despite the fact that he got two gold, one for freestyle and the other with Rin in the medley relay. “Right here. Want to wear it?”

She nodded a bit shyly as Haru slipped the medal off and put it around her neck. “Careful, it’s a bit heavy,” he murmured, making sure the medal lay on her lap so it wouldn’t choke her.

“It’s pretty,” she whispered, tracing the unique Tokyo design. “I think it’s prettier than the gold.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Haru,” she whispered, her voice barely heard over Rin’s laughter. “Are you going to go to the next Olympics?”

He had made his decision the moment the games were over. “No. I’m done with professional swimming.”

Rin heard that part and spun around, looking only half surprised. “You came to that decision mighty quick. We haven’t even finished celebrating.”

Truth be told, it just felt _right._ Haru was glad he pursued swimming as he did and accomplished what he had accomplished. But, he felt like opening a new chapter in his life, especially now since he had Makoto and Gou’s daughter to take care of.  “I know you’re going to want to go for one more games,” and when Rin opened his mouth to protest, to inevitably promise to quit if it had something to do with making sure Minori was taken care, Haru gave a smile to let him know that he was at peace. “I think I’m going to go to art school.”

Rin kept staring at him skeptically, almost unable to believe Haru could be so at peace with such a quick decision. “You’re sure? You don’t have to decide tonight, you know. You can always change your mind.”

Minori pressed into Haru’s side with a yawn, snuggling her face into his abdomen. He laid a hand atop her head. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

His three friends smiled at him.

 

* * *

 

“It’s different with you,” Rin explained one night, a night when Minori had long gone to bed, a night when questions that inevitably had to be answered were brought up. “I was her uncle before, and I’m her uncle now. I’ll always be Uncle Rin. But you…”

“Rin.” Haru hoped the desperation of his name on his lips would make Rin stop.

“As she grows up,” Rin tried again, using a different approach. “When she’s twelve years old and she’s filling out a contact sheet at school, or when her friend’s ask what her dad’s name is, or when her teacher asks for a parent to come into Career day, she’s going to ask _you._ I’m her uncle. You’re her dad.”

Haru shook his head firmly. “No. Makoto’s her dad.”

There was a flash of frustration on Rin’s face, evidenced by the crinkles in his brow. “Yes, he is. Gou’s her mother. But they aren’t here anymore. They did a great job of raising her while they were alive but in the end, most of her memories will be with us. With you, Haru.”

Again, he shook his head. “You’re _blood.”_ He emphasized. “She looks just like Gou,” and he specifically left out the part about her having Makoto’s eyes, “Just like you. You’re her family. I’m the friend Makoto tacked on to the custody request.”

“Haruka,” Rin snapped, and Haru clamped his mouth shut at the scolding. “You gave up  professional swimming for her. You gave it up so _I_ could keep swimming. You got that shitty job at that restaurant to pay the bills and save up for school. You pack her lunch every day and you pick her up from school  _every day._ You’re just as much her family as me.”

“But I’m not her dad,” Haruka swallowed. “I can’t. I’m not Makoto. I’m just not.”

“You don’t get it do you? You don’t see that she’s already decided. Haru,” This time his name was worn on his tongue, frustration evident when he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Seriously, is it really the end of the world if she wants to call you  _Papa?"_

"Yes."

"You're a piece of work, you know that?"

 

* * *

 

 

"I want to move back to Iwatobi."

Rin let out a long sigh. "Ah..."

Haru had been dreading this conversation ever since Minori moved in with them. The inevitable need for separation down the line for Rin and Haru was just as natural as when Makoto and Haru went their own ways after high school. But this time it involved the ever-so-complicated word of  _custody._ While Haru and Rin's bond was certainly strong, it had a physical connection in the form of a six year old girl that they couldn't exactly split in half.  

"...Minori should go with you."

Haru didn't know what he expected out of this conversation, what he  _wanted_ out of it, but Rin's confession surprise him nonetheless. "I was going to suggest the opposite."

Snorting, Rin shoved his hands into his pocket. "I know. But Haru, I've got two more years until Rome, and..." he stopped short, scrutinizing. "...I bet you've already got a good plan of what you can do back home."

"My parents never sold our home there," he admitted, "They said I can use that if I return."

Again, Rin kept staring and studying, and Haru did his best not to look uncomfortable under his stare. "Are you sure you're okay with being that close?"

Makoto's house. Rin was talking about Makoto's house.

"The twins are in their last year of high school. Minori could spent a lot of time with them and his parents. She could even visit your mom."

"She'd like that," Rin whispered, his face blooming a fond smile. "See? Even in you know deep down that Minori should go with you."

Face blushing with embarrassment or affront, Haru wasn't entirely sure, but he made sure to choose his words carefully and honestly. "Maybe just until you're done with the Olympics. I want you to come back."

A silence stretched on, unbearably empty. He almost wanted a tension, an uncomfortable heat, but it simply wasn't there; not until Rin reached forward and grabbed Haru by the drawstrings of his sweater and pulled him into a hug.

"I'll come back," Rin promised. "But it won't be the same. You know that right? It can't stay the same."

He knows what he's talking about. They've been roommates since high school, roommates since Minori moved in, and for awhile Haru was almost able to believe they'd be roommates for the rest of their lives. But as Rin wrapped his arms around him in a tight squeeze, it felt like an eviction notice--probably because it kind of was. It was time for another chapter in their lives.

"If you need me to come back, I will. If you need me to stay, I will. But Haru?"

He waited.

"You're not going to need me much anymore. You'll do just fine."

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao I don't know what this is just roll with it. Slice of life kind of deal.

“You’ll call every day?”

Handing Haru the last box from the moving truck, Rin kneeled down to meet Minori’s level. “Every day, Pipsqueak.”

She held out her pinky finger. “Promise?”

That’s when Rin started to tear up; in hindsight, Haru realized he had done a pretty good job of not breaking down completely. “I promise.” He wiped away one of his own niece’s tears. “Now, none of that. I’m just a train ride away. And you’ll be with Haru!” At the mention of his name, Minori clung to Haru’s pant leg. “And there’s also Grandma Tachibana and your aunt and uncle down the steps. My mom’s not too far away either, okay? I’ll come visit when I can.”

Minori nodded in understanding, weakly rubbing at her eyes. “Will you stay for dinner?”

“I can’t,” Rin whispered gently. “I have to get back to Tokyo before it’s too late. Swim practice in the morning, remember?”

She nodded again, this time much more relaxed. “Tell Kyo I said hello.”

“Oh, I will,” he grinned while patting at his jacket pocket where he had safely folded up her drawing to give to her “boyfriend”, Kyo. “He’s going to miss you most of all.”

“You have to help him out the pool, since I won’t be there.”

“Ah,” he leaned down and kissed her on her forehead; slow and gentle. “Be good.”

“Bye, Uncle.”

Haru and Minori stood at the top of their house and watched as Rin walked down the stairs. He turned back twice to wave before he slipped behind one of the Tachibana’s potted plants and knocked on their door, whispering a few quick hellos and goodbyes. Haru was still watching when he jogged down the cobblestone streets and back to the moving truck to Tokyo.

Now, it was just him and Minori.

“What do you want for dinner?” Haru asked, leaning down and scooping her up in his arms. He normally didn’t approve of coddling, but since today was an emotional and exhausting day, he decided to make an exception.

She rubbed her head back and forth into the crook of his neck, a habit she had picked up when she stayed but just a week under Nagisa’s care during the Olympics. “Can I take a nap first?”

Truthfully, it was a little too late for a nap, but Haru agreed nonetheless. “Sure.”

With most of their things still scattered about in the apartment, Haru let Minori sleep with him in his bed until he could get hers arranged come tomorrow morning. Alarm set to wake up in half an hour, the two of them dozed off.

They never ate dinner and instead woke to the sunrise and the sound of birds chirping.

 

* * *

 

Luckily, Minori was very excited about living in Iwatobi.

Like Haru, she enjoyed the cleaner air and the more picturesque scenery; especially the long shorelines close to his house. The prospect of a new school didn’t frighten her, it excited her, and it was moments like this where Haru realized Minori was often much more a Matsuoka than a Tachibana.

But those green eyes and the same gentle-giant smile pulled him back like the tides he could hear from his house.

Her first day at her new school was a strange experience for Haru. Back in Toyko, he spent her preschool days swimming or working, but for the first few days back, he didn’t have a job, so while he turned in applications in the morning, he spent the rest of the day in a pool of nostalgia.

Haru walked by his old school, by Samezuka, by the swim club that Coach Sasabe still owned. In fact, Sasabe caught him watching an early swim practice from up in the side stands and called him out in front of a small class of middle school students.

“Look kids! It’s Olympic swimmer, Haruka Nanase!”

Most of them recognized his face and name immediately and they all made another race of climbing out of the pool and rushing to greet him. It was a little overwhelming to see so many children at once, but he channeled Makoto’s old habits, as well as the new ones he’d picked up from watching Minori and smiled. “Hello. So I take it you like to swim, yes?”

A small girl with brown hair nodded. “Yes, sir! We’re going to be Olympic swimmers one day too!”

Haru smiled a little more broadly. “That’s a very big dream,” she took his reminder as having unrealistic expectations and started to pout, bottom lip quivering. “And,” Haru continued, “I think it’s important to have big dreams. If you work hard, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.”

That had her smiling, so much in fact she ran forward and gave him a sopping wet hug.

“Alright, kiddos!” Coach Sasabe called from the pool. “You’ll never make it as a pro if you cut practice early! Get back in the water!”

Haru stuck around for whatever reason—he told himself it was because he felt obligated after being seen by Sasabe, but the churning feeling in his stomach told him otherwise.

“Ah, Haru,” he greeted with a large grin after the last of the runts had been picked up by his mother. “It’s been a long time. What, 5 years?”

Probably longer. “It’s good to see you.”

The coach’s smile deflated to match the slight melancholy of their reunion. “I heard what happened to Makoto. And Kou. I’m sorry.” Haru gave a numb nod in return, hoping they could talk about _anything_ else. “How’s uh…their little girl? Minori, is it?”

“She’s good,” Haru answered. Makoto’s daughter wasn’t a much easier topic, but it was still easier. “Rin’s training for one last Olympics, so she’s under my care for a few years.”

A slow and sly smile bloomed on the coach’s face, as if remembering a dirty secret. “Ah, I recall. You were quite the talk of the town. People were surprised when Makoto requested Minori be left under both you and Rin’s care. Unusual request for someone who doesn’t know how close you two were, I suppose. You know, I always thought the two of you--”

More Makoto talk. It was something he was going to have to get used to, living back home again, but for today, he didn’t want to deal with it. Some days were simply harder than others, and Rin told him that was okay. “I have a question,” Haru blurted out in the middle of Sasabe’s speech.

“Oh? Well, sure! Go right on ahead.”

“I was wondering,” Haru cleared his throat, pondering on the request one last time. “If you had any teacher openings at your club.”

“Eh!?” Sasabe screeched. “You want to teach _here_?” When Haru nodded, Sasabe let out a gusty laugh. “There’s always room for you here, Haru! Plus it’ll be good for business no doubt. A four-time Olympic medalist teaching here? Jeez, you’d be doing _me_ a favor.”

“You can always can me if I don’t do a very good job.” Haru admitted. Sure, he was a swimming expert, but he wasn’t the best teacher. Makoto helped kids get over their fear of water, and it was Rin, not him, that taught Rei how to swim all the other strokes. He could be just a terrible teacher as well….Nagisa.

“I don’t think you need to worry, Haru,” Sasabe offered warmly. “Parenting has changed you, I can tell. I think you’ll do better than you think.”

Haru thought back to how he made that little girl with the brown hair smile and decided maybe his old coach had a point.

 

* * *

 

“And then Akane-chan hit the ball aaaaaallll the way over the fence!”

_“Waaaaah?”_ Haru heard Rin’s amazed screech coming from the living room where Minori was video chatting him. _“All the way over the fence? No way.”_

“She did, she did! It was so cool!”

_“So baseball is fun, yes? You like playing it?”_

Haru turned down the stove to lessen the fizzling of vegetables in hopes of overhearing her opinions. “I like hanging out with everyone, but I’m not too good at it. It can get kind of boring.”

_“Ah, I understand. Not like watching me and Haru swim a few heats, huh?”_

“Nope!”

Hoping to catch the tail end of their video chat, Haru did his best to plate the two of their dinners and bring it to the living room coffee table as quickly as he could. The two of them were laughing at something (probably at Haru’s expense) when he finally sat down.

_“Oi, Haru,”_ he grunted loud enough to let Rin know he was listening without looking up from his plate. “ _How’s school and work and all that jazz I have to ask about.”_

“Fine,” Haru answered shortly. Which, really, it was. Working as a swim coach, with or without his status, paid really well, and he was taking a few art classes at the local university in the morning while Minori was at school.

_“Just fine?”_

“You know Iwatobi,” he said, still looking at his food. “It’s quiet. Nothing really happens.”

_“…and you’re okay with that?”_

Honestly, he was. Getting out and seeing the world for a bit was something he needed to do, and something he’d need to do again, but for now, his old hometown brought a sense of comfort. He lifted his head to look at Rin through the small screen in the corner of his laptop, when he spotted something bright orange in the background. “…Who’s that?”

_“Hah?”_ Rin wheeled away from his desk to give a better view of the person on the couch. _“Oh, this is Mikoshiba. Needed another roommate when you moved out. You remember him, right?”_

“Seijuurou.”

_“Hello, Haru-chaaaaaan!”_ Mikoshiba screeched, waving enthusiastically.

Nope. Not the old captain at all. “Ah. Momo.”

_“Yeah,”_ Rin sighed, sounding more tired than annoyed. _“He definitely keeps things more lively than you ever did.”_

“Are you sure his constant energy is good for someone like you? You’re an old man in the swimming world, you need your sleep” Haru teased casually, attention divided between the computer and Minori’s plate, where he noticed she was playing with her broccoli. “Eat your veggies.”

“But they’re _gross.”_ she whined quietly.

“I know. I don’t like them either, but Rin will get mad if we don’t eat them.”

_“I’m old? I’m not the one who quit!”_ Rin barked out a laugh. _“Listen to Papa Haru and eat your veggies.”_

“You don’t get to call me that,” Haru sighed.

_“What are you going to do about it all the way over there, hmm?”_

Haru rolled his eyes. “Smartass,” he said in English.

Even over the webcam, the dilation of Rin’s eyes was obvious. _“Hey! Don’t use that language in front of her!”_

Minori pushed herself closer to the laptop, pressing her arm against Haru’s. “No, Uncle, don’t worry, I’m used to it!”

_“HARU!”_

“What?” Okay, so he probably shouldn’t be using that language around her, but he never really said anything worse than “ass”. But also, in his defense, he didn’t know that she knew about English swear words. “I don’t call her those names or anything. I only call you those things.”

_“Minori, where did you learn those English words anyway?”_

“From you!”

_“Shit. Wait! No! Shoot! I mean!”_

“See?”

“ _…Just don’t repeat them, okay?”_

Minori smiled. “I don’t, I promise. Those are adult words. I have to wait until I’m older to use them. That’s what Haru-chan said.”

_“…Yes. For once, he’s right.”_ Rin coughed, face red in embarrassment for cursing. _“Speaking of English, when do they start teaching it in school?”_

“She’s only six. You don’t take English until high school.”

_“You should start teaching her now.”_

While they trained for the Olympics in Brazil, Haru and Rin had lived in Australia for two years, and in that time Rin had _forced_ Haru to learn English. At first it was annoying; Rin would only speak in English and clarify in Japanese when _absolutely_ necessary. But being immersed in an English-speaking world like that forced Haru into Bilingualism, and he often caught the two of them speaking English without noticing—they hadn’t really done much of that since Makoto had died, for obvious reasons. “What’s the point? No one here speaks English.”

_“What’s the point, what’s the point,”_ Rin mocked, “ _The point is it’s easier to learn when you’re younger, and get harder every year. If you teach her now, that’ll be one less class for her to worry about in high school.”_

“If they find out she’s fluent in English, they’ll make her take another language. Something useless like Spanish or French.”

_“Since when is Spanish useless? An entire continent speaks it. It would have come in handy in 2016.”_ That was true. At least it had been amusing to see Rin struggle as much as him when they had competed. But French was still pretty useless.

There was a tug on Haru’s sleeve. “If I learn English,” Minori asked, “Then I can go to Australia too!”

“Hmm,” Haru lifted his arm and let her scoot to his side, draping his arm around her shoulders. “What do you want to go to Australia for?”

“Swimming! I want to be like you guys!”

Rin laughed over the computer. _“Decided on your big dream already, eh? Well, don’t rush things. You can do whatever you want!”_

“If she wants to swim, she can swim,” Haru explained plainly.

_“Yeah, yeah, you would say that. Listen, I got to go.”_

Minroi gave a wistful sigh, but her soft smile remained. The first couple of video chats were hard on her, but she had grown accustomed to the routine. “Okay. Bye, Uncle!” she blew a kiss and Haru watched as Rin tried to catch it. Haru could obviously see the hesitation in giving one back; the noble thing would be for him to turn around while Rin blew a kiss back, but Haru wasn’t that nice of a guy.

Eventually, he relented, and Rin blew a kiss Minori’s way. Just as she “caught” hers, Haru decided to have a little fun and blow one himself. “Thanks, dear,” he said, complete deadpan, and Rin sputtered.

Momo laughed in the background as the connection went dead.


	4. Chapter 4

It started with a sniffle. Then, Haru sneezed at the breakfast table. Twice. 24 hours later and he couldn’t even get out of bed.

“Papa Haru.”

Haru groaned.

_“Papa.”_

He cracked an eye open, horrified to find it was almost glued shut with…eye goop. Gross. Minori was staring at him, not worried, but definitely not happy, her mouth in a firm line. “You were supposed to get up earlier. Are you sick?” she asked.

Another groan. When he took a deep breath, he found the back of his throat stung something horrid. “Yeah.”

“Okay, but are you _dying?”_

“Probably.”

How he found the strength in him to be sarcastic like that, Haru didn’t know, but Minori took his joke a little more seriously than he had hoped. She tried making him breakfast and brought him some medicine and _tried_ to make tea even though she didn’t seem to grasp the concept of letting it _steep._ All he needed was a day of sleep and maybe some soup. With mackerel in in. Mackerel soup.

Haru didn’t bother to call someone to come get Minori and make sure she went to school. She was _seven._ Missing one day of school wasn’t going to be the end of the world. Besides, he skipped school all the time. And how did he end up? With four Olympic medals, thanks very much.

Minori fussed with him for a few minutes, maybe an hour, before she declared: “I’ll be right back,” and stole Haru’s phone and ran outside. He probably should have gone after her to make sure she didn’t call an ambulance or something, but in that moment when his nose was clogged up and his ears were ringing, he decided he had raised Minori well enough to not…do that.

An hour later, the door opened wide and Haru heard a familiar “Haru-nii!”

He was surprised to only see one of them, since the twins stuck like glue to one another as children, but they weren’t exactly _children_ anymore.They’d just turned 18, so things were bound to change.

Ran stuck her head through Haru’s doorway and grinned at his misfortune. “Pathetic,” she cooed, as Minori came to cling to her side, wearing a similar grin.

“Go away,” Haru sighed, hiding his face in his blanket. “Ran, you’re supposed to be in school.”

He felt the mattress dip with her weight as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Oh, calm down. I’ve only got a few more weeks left anyhow. Not like I’m missing out on much. Besides, my lovely niece gave me a call and told me you were dying, so naturally I had to come and get a laugh out of it.”

Why couldn’t she have turn out more like Makoto. Why was everyone turning out like _Rin._ “Minori, you should have gotten Ren.”

“You wound me, Haru-nii.”

“Ren can’t make soup!” Minori protested, jumping on the bed and squirming up next to him. “How are you going to get better without _soup.”_

Honestly, a monkey could make soup. Haru knew the real reason: Ren was just a germophobe. “Truthfully, you didn’t need to call anyone,” Haru finally remembered to say, because really, he didn’t want to deal with anyone at the moment. “And get off my bed, you don’t need to be getting sick as well.”

She ignored his request and Haru was too tired to tell her again. But then Ran made herself useful and plucked her off the bed herself. “Come on, girly, you can help me make the soup.”

“Mackerel. Fridge.” He hoped that got the message across.

“Chicken noddle? You got it!”

Ugh.

 

* * *

 

Ran proved herself more useful than he had anticipated: She called Minori’s school and told a fib that she was ill, called the Swim Club and told Sasabe that he wouldn’t be coming in that day, and even called one of Haru’s classmates to tape the art history lecture he would inevitably miss that evening. And in addition to all that, Ran cooked for the two of them, played video games with Minori, and even cleaned up around the house while he napped.

Maybe she was a little more like Makoto than he first thought.

Over dinner, Haru felt well enough to at least sit at the table with the girls and eat like a normal person. Hopefully, this whole sick-thing was a 24 hour deal and he’d be better by morning. “So you’re almost done with school.”

As a Tachibana, she had a knack for knowing what he was getting at. “Yup! Going to a university in Kyoto.”

“With Ren?”

“No, no…he’s going to Nagoya.” She sighed wistfully.  “I think the separation will do us some good, you know? And in any case, we’re still not too far apart, so I think we’ll be okay.”

Haru sipped on his soup. “You will be.”

She smiled at him, reaching over to tug Minori into her lap. “Hopefully I’ll do a little better than Nii-chan, eh?”

It _sounded_ like a joke, and Haru was pretty confident in what she was referring to, but nothing could quite erase the true fear of the situation that Makoto and Gou fell into those seven years ago. “Don’t get knocked up in your first year and I’ll say you’ll do a lot better than Makoto.”

Ran burst out laughing, slapping at her knee. “No promises!” she winked, and Haru rolled his eyes. “After all,” she squeezed Minori by the waist and she let out a delighted giggle. “The outcome isn’t so bad, is it?”

He eyed Minori, who was playing with the bow on Ran’s school uniform. “They got lucky _.”_

Her smile almost erased completely, leaving behind the traces of something much sadder. “For a while, yes. They were very lucky.”

And like all luck, it runs out eventually.

After tying up her bow into something that almost resembled a knot, Minroi tugged on Ran’s jacket sleeve and asked, “What do you mean by knocked up? Is it like getting hit or something?”

Mortified in his own silent way, Haru’s mind raced to come up with an excuse before Ran said something stup— “Only if there’s a safe word.”

_“Ran.”_

He definitely wished Ren had come instead.

 

* * *

 

“Can I come to your studio today?”

Haru looked down at their intertwined hands that Minori was swinging back and forth with vigor. Onlookers looked on with fondness at the sight. “Sure. I’m going to be painting for a few hours.”

“Okay,” she chirped, happy to be included, but something still didn’t sit right with him.

“You should paint too. I’ve got extra canvases.” Every time Minori came down to his studio with him, she would just sit and watch. She never wanted to paint, never wanted to ask him to draw stuff, never tried to put her own input into what he was making. He thought it was strange—she simply loved being with him all the time to the point where she didn’t have any other hobbies or time with friends her own age. Makoto stuck to him all the time when they were children, but they were peers, kids growing up together. Haru worried that Minori was still lonely and traumatized after the death of her parents that she clung to Haru in fear.

“I’m okay,” Minori chirped. “I don’t like painting much.”

He thought back to their occasional swims. “You say the same thing about swimming. You should try to find something you like to do.”

Minori gnawed on her lip. “Oh. Do I bug you?”

“No. We’re best friends.” Haru answered smoothly, smiling lightly when she lit up with glee. “I just want to make sure you don’t get bored.”

“I’m never bored with you, Papa.”

Haru paid attention after that.

He made detours through pointless shops and antique malls just so he could see what Minori picked up. Baseballs, chess sets, board games, cameras, they’d pass them all but she didn’t seem the least bit interested. Then one day, while he was looking for a birthday gift to give to Makoto’s mother, he noticed that Minori was not by his side.

Curious, Haru slowly meandered through the long aisles until he found her in the back of the store on the floor with a ukulele in her hand. There was an older lady, one of the vendors, guiding her hands and showing her where to put the pads of her fingers to make a note. She strummed out an F chord just as a smile nearly broke her face in two.

He bought it for her without hesitation.

 

* * *

 

_“Music, eh? Comes as a bit of a surprise. Gou was absolutely tone deaf.”_

The faint sound of “Over the Rainbow” echoed through the hallways as Haru sat in his bedroom with his laptop video calling Rin. “Makoto could sing.”

 _“That comes as a surprise as well,”_ Rin admitted. _“I never heard him do anything other than hum.”_

He didn’t do it often; Makoto only sung under his breath when he was really happy, or when he thought he was alone. Haru caught him singing in the mornings when he thought he was still asleep after sleeping over at his house. “I’m going to use my next commission to pay for a piano.”

Rin blinked. _“Piano? I thought you said it was a guitar.”_

“It’s a ukulele. And she’s been playing one at the music store when we go look for teaching books.”

 _“Goddamn, Haru,”_ Rin swore, switching into English as he ran his hand through his hair. _“She might have just been looking. You should try asking her if, you know, she actually wants to learn before you…”_ he trailed off, googling something into the computer. “ _…fork over 300 pounds for a keyboard. Oh. Huh. I thought I’d be worse.”_

Haru frowned. “It’s like growing up with Makoto,” he said in English, “She won’t admit to wanting to do anything if she even considers it the slightest bit selfish.”

Subject change. _“Whoa! Your accent is barely there! Geez, you sound better than me, have you been practicing?”_

“You asked me to teach her English, so I have. She sounds better than the both of us.”

_“Awesome. One more thing for you two to gang up on me about. I can’t wait.”_

Minori came running into Haru’s bedroom, jumping on his bed and wiggling her way on his lap so she could be in front of the webcam. “Uncle Rin! I learned a new song.”

_“Well, get to serenading me!”_

Much to his nerves, Haru’s heard the song probably a thousand times in the last two weeks, but it sounds better each time, and for that he’s proud.


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes he got this terrible ache in his chest.

Haru wished it could be summed up to something as simple as sadness, but unfortunately, it was so much more than that. It was this feeling that made all of him _collapse_ into himself. It hallowed him out and made him feel empty; and empty was bad. Angry and hurt and upset were fine, but empty was dangerous. There were days, very _very_ few days, yet, days where he couldn’t get out of bed. Days where he couldn’t believe Makoto had died and left so much behind.

Minori found him curled up in his bed and assumed that he was oversleeping, jumped on his bed and tried to jostle him awake. But then she realized it was one of _those days._ Days where he just shut down.

Haru hated that she saw him like that. He was supposed to be an example for her, but here he was, unable to take her to school or make her breakfast. Pathetic. It was why she should have been with Rin.

He could hear her on the phone, down the hall. At first he thought she had called Rin, and maybe she did, but then she heard her keep repeating _Sousuke_ over and over again, and he got suspicious. She returned to his room, cell phone clutched to his chest, and approached him as if he were a skittish animal that might run away. “Here. Please talk to him.”

The endearment came out of nowhere, a product of his less-than-stable state. It sounded like a prayer. “Honey, not right now.”

_“Please.”_

There isn’t anything he’d like to have done more than hang up, but Minori looked so sad that he grabbed the phone. “Hello.”

_“Nanase.”_

Of all the people Haru expected to hear from when he came back to Iwatboi, Sousuke was at the bottom of that list. “Yamazaki.”

_“I’m on my way, don’t lock the door.”_

“Excuse me?”

Sousuke hung up after that.

Haru looked down at Minori, brow furrowed, trying to look stern but failing miserably. “What did you call Yamazaki for?”

Wringing her hands behind her back, Minori looked off to the side. “Uncle told me to call him, since he can’t come over and kick your, uh, _butt,_ himself.”

She made herself scarce after that, likely standing by the front door with determination in the event Haru decided to try and lock Sousuke out. Part of him would have loved to, but frankly, he was too tired to even try.

Not but thirty minutes later, Sousuke knocked on the door and Minori let him in before he had time to knock a second time. His deep baritone carried through the halls and he heard him greet her as “Tachibana-san,” and she giggled.

Slowly but surely, his voice got louder as he got closer to Haru’s bedroom. “Where’s your dad?” he asked her, and Haru’s heart skipped a few beats.

“In here,” Minori whispered, and his heart ached even more, because that _was the wrong answer her dad wasn’t here._

Sousuke didn’t knock on the door, but then again, Minori had left it open. “Oi, Nanase,” he said, “Long time no see.”

For a brief moment, Haru recalled their handful of one-on-one interactions in the past decade. “Yeah. It’s weird not having you shove me up against a vending machine like a grade school bully.”

“Papa,” Minori scolded, crawling up on his bed again. “Be nice.”

“Yeah, be nice. I called off work to come over here.”

Haru managed a slight scowl. “No one asked you to.”

“On the contrary. Rin asked me too. I even got a text from Hazuki giving me thanks in advance.” Haru would be lying if he wasn’t incredibly ticked off when Sousuke reached down and ripped the comforter off his bed.  “Sit up, come on.”

While Haru certainly didn’t want to do anything for the day, he wasn’t an absolute child, so he did as he was asked. Minori took the opportunity to snuggle into his side, her head on his upper forearm. “Why’d Rin ask you to come?” he asked flatly, reaching for the comforter in Sousuke’s hands. He tossed it behind him on the floor.

“Well, when your daughter has to call her uncle to tell him that ‘Papa’s heart broke again’ then someone needs to do something about it, don’t you think?”

He instinctively wrapped his arm around Minori and gave her a light squeeze. “My heart isn’t broken.”

Minori rubbed her head back and forth into his arm. “You were crying,” she whispered, and Haru couldn’t help but make the choked noise that he did.

Sousuke might have been a jerk, but he was a smart jerk. “Alright. While I’m not a cardiologist, I am a physical therapist, and I might know a thing or two about fixing broken hearts.”

“Really?” Minori awed. “You’re a doctor, Yamazaki-san?”

“Sorta. And I think the best thing for all of us to do—“

“—all of us?” Haru interrupted, clearly not fond of doing anything with him.

“—is to go out and get some fresh air. Tachibana, have you had breakfast yet?” Minori shook her head. “Thought not. Here, why don’t you go get dressed for the morning and think about what you’d like for breakfast, and I’ll make sure Nanase puts on matching pairs of shoes, things like that.”

“I can dress myself,” Haru growled, but it went unnoticed as Minori hobbled off the bed and dashed into the hall for her own room. “Seriously, what game are you playing at?”

“No game,” Sousuke said calmly. “Just get up and get dressed. Remember, socks first _then_ shoes…”

Haru missed when he tried to throw a shoe at his face.

 

* * *

 

Sousuke ended up taking them to a small bakery on the edge of town by the shore, to which Minori was delighted---what seven year old doesn’t like pastries for an entire meal? Sousuke even ended up paying for the entire meal himself, which was only half surprising to Haru; he imagined Rin yelled over the phone all sorts of weird instructions to try and make sure Haru was back to normal the next day.

They went down to the beach after they ate, Haru silently praying that this whole rough “play-date” would be over soon. Minroi ran ahead to try and find things in the tide pools while Sousuke slowed the pace to keep the two of them out of earshot. “You shouldn’t be doing this,” Sousuke eventually admitted, and Haru fought a goddamn growl.

“I’m aware. You don’t have to lecture me.”

“You _wouldn’t_ be doing this if you’d just _call_ someone every once in a while,” he elaborated, slipping off his sneakers to walk barefoot in the sand. For some reason, Haru waited for him before they continued walking.

“I call Rin.” Which was true. Haru called Rin a couple times a week.

“Not what I mean, and you know it.”

Haru let out a long sigh.

“I understand that losing Tachibana was hard. Harder than I can imagine,” Sousuke began slowly, so slowly Haru was questioning if he was trying to recall a pre-written speech, or he had no idea what he was going to say at all, “But you aren’t the only one who suffered. His parents lost a son. His siblings lost a brother. Your other friends lost him too. And Rin—“ He paused. “Rin lost him _and_ his sister.”

Haru felt like throwing up.

“Rin calls people. He calls all your Iwatobi friends. He calls Nitori. His mother. He calls people when he wakes up feeling like you did today. Because he can’t shut down. He refuses to shut down.”

Suddenly, Haru made a realization. “Rin doesn’t talk to me.”

Sousuke stopped and turned, looking down at him to meet his eyes. “No, he doesn’t. Which I always found strange. I asked him that one day, and you know what he said? He said you had enough on your plate,” and he nodded towards Minori off in the distance.

“Makoto and Gou…they should have left her with him.”

“Anyone else would have. Rin would do just fine. I still don’t know why Makoto thought she needed the _both_ of you, but it must be a good reason, because Gou didn’t even hesitate to agree.”

“How do you know that?”

Sousuke tapped at his earlobe. “Because I listen. Because I talk to people. I know it’s gross to talk about feelings—especially for you—but it’s necessary sometimes.” Off in the distance, Minori squealed about finding a starfish. “Do you teach her to bottle up her emotions?”

His answer was immediate. “No.”

“You should practice what you preach, then.”

A few seconds later, Minori ran over, sleeves soaked from where she failed to roll them up properly before she dug into the tide pools. She held up a small orange-brown starfish. “Papa, look! Can I keep it?”

Haru leaned down slowly, absently playing with her sleeves, unrolling and rolling them up to make them neat and matching. “Starfish need to live in the ocean. If you take if from its home, it’ll get sick. You don’t want that, do you?”

Minori shook her head vigorously back and forth. “No,” she pouted, with a long resigned sigh. “I’ll put it back,” she decided with a quick nod of her head.

Haru tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Good decision.”

She leaned down and pecked the slightly squirming starfish with a chaste kiss. “Goodbye, starfish!” She held it out to Haru. “Do you want to say goodbye?”

Without hesitation, Haru reached out and held the back of Minori’s upturned hand before leaning down to kiss the little starfish. “Goodbye, starfish,” he repeated, before she ran back to put it in the tide pool.

“Ah,” Sousuke murmured quietly as Haru stood straight again. “I know why.”

Haru was glad someone did.


	6. Chapter 6

After a third Olympics and his first individual gold medal around his neck, Rin came back to Iwatobi.

Minori insisted she cook dinner for the three of them with _no help_ from Papa Haru, thank you very much. Haru amused her, silently watching from behind and trying to figure out how he could fix this and how he could save that in the event that she burn something. She was halfway through staring at the fish cook on the stove when Rin barged through the unlocked door, two heavy duffle bags in hand.

“Oi, Haru!” he barked over Minori’s squeal of “Uncle Rin!” “Do you always leave the door unlocked like an idiot?”

“I unlocked it. I knew you were coming.” When Haru rounded the corner to the foyer, he saw the tender scene of Minori and Rin in the tightest hug Haru had seen in years. “Hey, sweetie,” Rin whispered, tilting his head to drop a kiss on the side of her head. He broke the hug and held her at arms’ length. “Oh no.”

Minori’s eyes widened. “What? What is it?”

“You’ve _grown!_ Are you taller than _me!?”_

Her eyes crinkled like Makoto’s and her nose scrunched like Gou’s. “You’re silly,” she giggled.

He ruffled her hair with a broad grin, raking his fingers through her bangs. “I’m digging the new hair. Whose idea was this?”

A few weeks ago, after Minori had declared she was sick to death of combing her waist long hair, she had gotten Haru to take her to the barber where they snipped it off right at the chin. “Mine! Do you like it?”

“I love it! Now we match. Everyone will know we’re siblings.”

Haru rolled his eyes. “I don’t think you’ve realized how old you’ve gotten.” He bumped Minori in the back of her shoulder and she looked up to give him a sneaky grin. “I think he swallowed too much chlorine water these past four years.”

Rin opened his mouth to shoot back some snarky comment, but Minori intervened with, “Haru showed me pictures of Mom when she was my age. She had her hair cut just like this!”

Rin’s face went blank at that comment and Haru could see him trying to dig up the memory; there was a slight frown and he could tell he was struggling. “Oh!” he eventually said, snapping his finger. “Yes. She did have her hair cut like that. She hated it.”

“Why?” Haru asked. He already knew the answer, he just wanted Rin to own up to it.

“Oh, because—“ he paused, face warming in embarrassment. “—because she had to cut it when she got gum caught in her hair.”

“ _She?”_

“Okay, fine, _I_ got gum in her hair. But it was an accident!”

Minori seemed to buy the story, passing it off with a polite giggle; Haru was picking up that she was far too glad to see Rin to tease or bother him in any way. “Where’s the gold medal?” he asked, fighting off the urge to tack on “old man” to the end of that sentence.

“In the bag,” and he nudged it Minori’s way so she could dig it out. He sniffed the air. “Is something burning?”

She gasped. “My fish!”

They had cold cereal for dinner.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Rin had returned, Haru couldn’t believe how he’d made it two years without him.

Obviously, Rin had come and go in his life for years at a time, and Haru could certainly manage, but it was nice having him around. He didn’t have to speak nor think as much with Rin, because he did most of that for him. It also helped that Haru didn’t have to constantly rely on Tachibana-san or Ran or God forbid _Yamazaki_ to help him out when he needed an extra hand. Rin was a manageable amount of energy that made everything a twinge bit warmer.

The first thing Rin started doing, however, was rather annoying.

Sometimes he would just _stare;_ he’d stare at whatever interaction Haru had with Minori, be it talking over breakfast or kissing her goodbye before she went to school. It was absolutely _annoying._

“What?” He finally hissed when Minori had run out the door to meet a friend to walk to school with.

Rin blinked before that one of his dumbass pointy grins nearly broke his cheeks into pieces. “She’s like a mini-you.”

Uneasiness washed over him. “She’s nothing like me,” he defended because, honestly, if Minori turned out to be anything like him, she was in big trouble.

“She is!” Rin cheered. “It’s adorable.”

“No, no,” Haru blurted out, almost rushed wanting to make things straight. “Minori’s….” he didn’t want to give the opportunity for Rin to tease him, but the truth was the truth. “…well, she’s _nice.”_

Of course Rin laughed. “You’re nice, whether you like to admit it or not. But that’s not really what I meant.”

He quirked a brow. “Then what _did_ you mean?”

Rin, again, laughed, and patted him on the back. “Pay attention, you’ll see. Now, do you think Sasabe would allow _two_ Olympian coaches at his swim club, or is that a little overkill?”

 

* * *

 

He found out what he meant 3 days later.

Minori was an exceptional student in all subjects, and behavior in those classes was no exception. So Haru was thoroughly baffled when he got a call from her teacher one afternoon saying that she had gotten into a fight and he was needed right away.

Rin was at a meeting at Samezuka academy so Haru was on his own as he literally _ran_ to the elementary school. Upon his arrival he spotted two other children in the waiting room, one boy and one girl, but Minori was the only one sporting a content look that looked outlandish with this enormous gash on her head.

“Minori!” he cried, quiet and a bit breathless, and she turned her head slowly to meet his stare. His concern for his injuries didn’t allow him to scold her at the moment and upon closer inspection, he noticed that her head was going to need _stitches._

“Hi, Papa,” she said, a bit sheepish. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t want her to say sorry, not until he knew what happened, so he didn’t respond. “Where’s your teacher?”

Said teacher came out of the principal’s office, wearing a polite smile. “Ah, Nanase-san, glad you’re here. Why don’t you come in and we can—“

He cut her off, not bothering to even look at her as he adjusted the red-soaked cloth pressed to Minori’s forehead. “I’m taking her to the hospital. She needs stitches. I’ll come tomorrow to discuss what happened,” and without another word he scooped her up, hooking her arms around his neck, and carried her out of the school.

“I didn’t mean to,” she told him, once they were past the gardens out front. “I was just trying to stop someone from picking on this kid.”

He held her tighter. “I believe you,” he mumbled.

“She was putting worms in his hair. He looked so sad. I only shoved her when she started kicking dirt in my face.”

“I believe you,” he repeated.

“She tackled me and I hit my head on a rock. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” she whimpered, and he heard the traces of a few sobs.

“I believe you,” he repeated one last time, tilting his head to give her a kiss.

 

* * *

 

_“Hello? Haruka? You don’t normally call this early.”_

Slightly swaying from what must have been a horrific headache, Minori clung to his side as they waited at the train station. “Rei, how far is the new hospital you work at?”

_“Oh! It’s about 30 minutes outside Iwatobi. But I haven’t moved quite yet, I’m not there until next week.”_

“Minori needs stitches.”

_“What happened? Is she alright?”_

Well of course she wasn’t alright. She needed stitches. “Rei, you need to give her stitches.”

He heard Rei sigh over the phone. “ _Stitches are a very basic and rudimentary part of any doctor training. You’ll find competent doctors in Iwatobi.”_ The train came to the station with minimal noise, but enough for Rei to figure out where he was. “ _Are you at a train station!?”_

“Yes, I’m trying to take her to a hospital.”

Another sigh. _“There’s a clinic complex north of Samezuka. Take her there, they will be able to give her stitches. Don’t take her on a train. Where was she injured?”_

“Her head.”

_“Ah. They have stuff to check for head trauma, too, you know.”_

His heart skipped a beat. “Head trauma?”

_“Depending on the extent of her injuries, she could have fractures, brain swelling, a concussion—“_

“I’m bringing Minori to you.”

Rei squawked over the phone. _“No, no, don’t do that! Don’t take a train over here, that’s far too long to go without medical attention. The clinic is just fine, drive her there.”_

“I…” he swallowed thickly, glancing at Minori before squeezing her hand. “...can’t drive anymore.”

The connection they had wasn’t crystal, and there was a small silence filled with static.  _“…Right. I forgot. Well, get to the clinic as quickly as you can, they’ll take care of her just as well as I could.”_

The train doors opened and he guided both of them on. “Okay. Thanks, Rei.”

After asking a few people on the train, he learned that it ended up stopping right outside the clinic Rei was talking about—exactly two miles north of Samezuka.

Minori clung to his side on the ride over, looking slightly miserable, when Haru decided that he should probably call her uncle. “Rin? Some kid on the playground broke Minori.”

 

* * *

 

“Don’t move,” Haru chided her when the doctor tried a third time to get another stitch in her head. The doctor only smiled at Minori and smoothed her hair, promising they’d be done soon if she’d be brave and hold still.

Rin leaned off the far side of the wall and took a few steps across the clinic room to lean down in Minori’s line of sight, where she was still squirming. “If you’re not careful, she’ll sew your nose into your eye.”

“Don’t tell her that,” Haru sighed, but it worked nonetheless, because Minori stopped moving after that. It only took five small stitches before the doctor was done.

“There, that wasn’t so bad was it?” The doctor asked, and Minori shook her head. “Now, all that’s left is a quick shot and then I’ll give you a lollipop, how does that sound, baby?” Minori nodded. “Good. I’ll be right back.”

As the doctor left the room, Rin wandered back over to stand over Haru’s chair and clapped him on the back of the shoulder, pinching at the nape of his neck. “I can’t believe you tried to bring her to _Rei.”_

In hindsight, it did seem a little ridiculous, but only just. “I wanted to make sure she got a good doctor,” Haru shrugged. “He’s the best one I know.”

Rin smiled fondly at that. “True. Now,” his voice hiked up a few decibels when he switched to English before he jumped on the patient table beside Minori, rustling the paper on the bed. “I want to hear about this Mexican Stand Off.”

Before Haru could tell Rin he was watching too many English films, Minori explained, “Everyone picks on Dai. I don’t know why. He’s really nice! He’s really quiet and he’s small, smaller than me, but he’s super smart! He helps me with my maths homework! I don’t know why so many people pick on him. I just wanted them to stop.”

“Sounds familiar,” Rin sing-songed, staring straight at Haru. Minori wasn’t getting it.

“What?”

“When Haru and Makoto were kids, they got picked on a lot too,” Rin explained.

That was partially true. Haru remembered kids saying things behind his back but nothing really mean, nothing really cruel; children just found him odd and unapproachable, which didn’t bother him. Makoto was a whole other story. Before he became the giant he was he was small and combined with his childish fears and the push-over personality he had yet to outgrow, he was an easy target for bullies. So back when Haru had a few inches on him, it was his job to protect Makoto.

“Really?” Minori asked, “What happened?”

“Haru did far worse than you. Don’t follow in his example,” Rin warned. “But I think—“

“I punched a kid in the face," Haru admitted, deadpan. "And broke his nose."

“Papa!”

Rin rubbed at the bridge of his own nose. “Yeah, you’re pretty good at that.” He faced Minori. “Tell me, is it still crooked? Because Gou used to say all the time that it was still a little crooked, even though I’m pretty sure it’s straight—“

Minori’s eyes were wide as saucers as she shoved Rin’s face out of the way. “It was Uncle!? You punched Uncle in the face?”

Haru frowned. “Oh, no. Rin never bullied Makoto. I broke Rin’s nose on accident with my elbow.”

“Basketball,” Rin huffed in means of explanation. “It’s a good thing swimming requires you to stay in your own lanes. Who knows what havoc you would have unleashed otherwise.”

Minori’s expression went from shocked to skeptical. “…is this why you never agree to play basketball with me?”

He shrugged. “More or less.”

“Haru, she’s like five feet shorter than you. How are you going to elbow her in the face?”

“Hyberbole.”

“Hyperbo--? Oh, shut up. You get what I mean.”

“I also hate basketball.”

Minori giggled. “How come?”

“Eventually, Makoto was taller. He always won.”

Rin snorted. “Seems fair. You always won at swimming.”

“That was different,” Haru cut in. “In high school, I didn’t swim for times, I only swam—“

“Free,” Minori and Rin said together. “Yeah, we know.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

Haru mumbled out an “excuse me” as he tried to squeeze through the sea of parents to get to a decent spot to watch the match. Ran clung to his jacket from behind and did the part of giving reassuring smiles to make Haru look a little less scary. They sat at the end of the row next to a woman who appeared to be as old as his own mother; but then again, Haru hadn’t seen his parents in about five years, so what did he know?

Ran leaned into him heavily, a habit she never really shed from when she was younger, hooking her arm into the crook of his elbow. “This is so exciting! Her first swim match, I can’t believe she’s already competing.”

Truth be told, Haru couldn’t either. When she was very young, Minori always expressed interest in being a swimmer like Rin and himself, but once she actually got swimming, she lacked the competitive spark that Haru did when he was her age. She wasn’t nearly obsessed with swimming as he was and she always explained that she could be happy doing a lot of other things as well, like music. But, like Rin, as soon as she had gotten a taste of a relay, Minori seemed to have _really_ taken a liking to swimming.

He could feel Ran’s breath on his neck before she leaned away, carding her fingers through his hair. “I’m liking this new hair. It’s very becoming.”

Two weeks ago, Haru had cut his hair into what Rin described as a “Dad Cut.”; it was the shortest his hair had ever been. “Of what?” He grunted.

“Of an old man,” she teases, sticking her tongue out, but her teasing stopped short to make way of a gasp. “Oh, wait,” she reached forward and pulled out one of his hairs, making Haru wince. “Dude. You have grey hair!”

An unfortunate product of genetics, Haru was well aware of his growing grey hair over the past few months. “Yes, I own a mirror. I own a Rin, too.” He hadn’t shut up about it since he noticed it. “I know.”

“You’re like, twenty-seven.”

“I know.” He rapped his knuckles on the side of her skull. “I own a calendar too.”

“You stressed?”

“Of course I’m stressed. I have to deal with you, among others.”

“So unfortunate,” she teased, raking her hands through his hair again, “But luckily, still so handsome.”

On Haru’s other side, the woman who looked his mother’s age chuckled. “Aren’t you two adorable?”

Ran beamed. “Whip out that calendar of yours, Haru, and mark the day because I don’t think anyone’s gonna call you adorable ever again.”

He rapped his knuckles on her skull again, this time going as far to mess up her hair and give her half a noogie, making the woman laugh harder. “How did you two meet?”

It’s happened on a few occasions, that Ran was mistaken for his girlfriend or his wife (He didn’t know why. She was about ten years younger than him) and he was lucky she looked nothing like her twin; her hair was dark enough and her eyes bright enough to pass as family. “She’s my sister.” Kinda-sorta true.

Ran nodded and pointed to Minori down by one of the lanes, and elaborated, “That’s my niece! She’s the one with the red hair.”

“Oh!” The woman lit up. “Minori-chan? Oh, how wonderful.” She reached over and patted a gentle hand on Haru’s shoulders. “Your daughter is an absolute sweetheart.” He swallowed he correction; if he’s learned anything over the past few years, making the correction simply opens a can of worms no one wants to deal with. “My granddaughter gushes about her all the time, they’re quite a pair. Akane?”

Haru remembered an Akane. “Yes. They walk to school together.”

The woman seemed pleased. “Yes! Oh, she Kimi and Emily have a blast on this relay team. They like taking turns doing all the different ah, parts.”

“Strokes,” Haru corrected on instinct, because a part of him (a jerk part of him, but still) couldn’t let that one go uncorrected.

“Yes! The different strokes. They like to see which ones they’re best at.” The woman laughed. “It changes every week.”

Haru smiled at that. He dropped by on occasion and saw their practices and knew what she said to be true. “Akane has an affinity for butterfly, I’ve noticed. It comes most natural to her.”

“ _Nerd,”_ Ran mumbled under her breath, grinning, while the older woman looked surprised. “Really? Huh, I never noticed. You know, I never pegged you for the swimming type.”

That was….so strange to hear from anyone. Ever. Even on the most basic level, Haru still taught swimming, so he was surprised the woman hadn’t seen him before. “I know you teach here,” she went on to say, confusing him furthermore, “But you seem so passionate about your painting! I walk past that small studio you own, with all the windows by that book store? You’re in there for hours, sometimes. You still working on that portrait?”

“Portrait?” Ran mumbled.

“Oh, he’s doing this wonderful portrait. Huge!” He can see her envisioning it in her head. “Well, I suppose it’s a bit of a landscape too, right? The boy isn’t all that big, but he’s there, and so _vivid…”_ She stretched out her hand in a welcoming gesture, almost like a handshake. “His hand….you’ve painted his hand like you could just grab it. Like he’d pick you up and take you anywhere.”

“Brother?” Ran whispered, and whether or not she meant Makoto or him, Haru pretended he wasn’t sure.

“Oi! Haru!”

All three turned their heads to see Rin jogging up the bleachers, two steps at a time. “You’re late,” Haru chastised, more of a note than a reprimand.

“If the race hasn’t started, then I’m not late,” he grinned, taking an open seat right behind Haru in the stands. The woman offered to trade seats to sit with Haru and Ran, but Rin charmed her with compliments and insisted she keep her seat. He still heard the two of them talking when the kids lined up for the relay race.

“What’s our girl doing today, hmm?” Rin asked Ran, poking her gently in the back with his knee.

“Backstroke,” Haru answered, just as Minori finished up highfiving Akane and hopping in the pool to begin the relay.

The horn started and Haru wished he was eight years old again.

Minori’s team won.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I understand that this format is really strange and there might be emphasis on things you wouldn't expect, but I hope it's not too distracting? I dunno, I just think this is pretty fun to write, little barely interconnected drabbles and such. ANYWAY, thanks for those sticking with it, some of you seem to really like it, which is always nice! ALSO 100% love the idea of Haru going grey at a pretty young age. Like he's 30 and he's a silver fox. yeah.


	8. Chapter 8

“Are you ever going to get married?”

Haru blinked, looking up from his plate and across the table at Minori; she had her chin resting in the palm of her hand as she leaned forward, chopsticks clocking together mindlessly in her other hand. “Why are you asking?”

She stared a moment longer before she shrugged, eyes going back to her rice. “I was only wondering.” A pause. “Do you think Uncle would ever get married?”

That was a whole other thing. “I can’t speak for Rin.”

Minori sighed. “You don’t go on dates,” she pouted, stuffing a mouthful of rice in her mouth. “You two are too busy taking care of me.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Haru sighed, handing her a napkin. “And you act like taking care of you is a chore.”

“It isn’t?”

Haru shook his head. “Of course not. Although,” Minori squinted, waiting for the punchline, “It’d be helpful if you could take the train by yourself.”

He fought a smile when he clearly saw he had struck a chord with her. “It’s not my fault!” she squawked. “Rin doesn’t let me. I’m _ten years old._ I can handle it.”

He hummed her suggestion off, not really in the mood to get into it for tonight; it was a conversation that would inevitably occur again in the next few weeks, as it always frequently did. They fell into a comfortable silence while they went back to their dinner, thinking the whole married thing had been dropped for good.

Except for the part where it hadn’t.

“What about Ran?” Minori said eventually, hesitation clear in her tone.

He tried to pretend he had no idea what she was insinuating. Luckily, he was a master at playing it cool. “What about her?”

“Why don’t you marry _her?”_

Even though he knew it was coming, he still ended up choking on a piece of chicken. So much for playing it cool. After a few gulps of water, he said, “I’m not going to marry Ran.”

Minori didn’t see that answer suitable. “Well, why not? She’s really funny and she can talk really fast and she always has so many cool ideas!”

There were a million answers that seemed obvious to him (He didn’t love her like that, she was too young, she’s been like his little sister his whole life, if he married her…her aunt would be her stepmom, and that was just weird) but he went with the honest truth. “I don’t want to marry anyone.”

Minori pouted. “Ever?”

“Probably not.”

She sighed. “But….won’t you get lonely?”

Haru hummed, reaching over to grab a piece of broccoli he knew she wouldn’t end up eating. “I’m not lonely now, so why would I get lonely later?”

In retaliation, Minori leaned over the table and grabbed at a piece of his chicken. “I guess,” she mumbled, although she clearly didn’t seem happy with the situation. “Papa?”

“Hmm.”

“What if people thought…you were _already_ married?”

He…didn’t really get what she was trying to say. “Why would people think that?” He didn’t want to outright accuse her of spreading rumors, so he bit his tongue.

“I keep trying to explain, but no one believes me!” Minori squealed, voice terribly shrill due to her frustration. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice, leaning into the table to whisper, “Everyone thinks you and Rin are…married.”

He opened his mouth to try and give an explanation that was rational and made sense, but all he thought about was how Rin did his laundry last week, how Haru did all the cooking, and all the other horribly domesticated things they did together as roommates and figured that the battle had already been lost before he even tried to fight it.

“…That’s fair,” Haru shrugged, thinking nothing of it. “We _are_ pretty domesticated. But, I can always kick him out to dispel rumors.”

Minori laughed.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later, marriage is brought up again. Only this time it’s from Rin.

“Minori asked me the same thing a few days ago,” Haru sighed, eyes concentrating on the roses; he was doing a commission for some in Iwatobi that required painting a lot of flowers.

Rin was too nice to say it, but he wasn’t the biggest fan of Haru’s studio, probably because it looked really messy from all the paint splattered on the walls and on the concrete floors. He was sprawled out on the only piece of comfortable furniture, a couch, with a clipboard of times from his small number of personal students he had started training in the past three months. “Well, it’s because it’s a valid question. One that you should probably consider.”

“I told her. I don’t want to get married.”

“Well yeah,” he snorted, “You say that now. You aren’t seeing anyone, so why would you?”

Haru started to get frustrated really quickly. “Why don’t _you_ get married _,”_ he countered a bit sourly. “Minori mentioned you too.”

“Maybe I will,” he grinned, sitting up on the couch and tossing the clipboard aside. “Maybe I’ll marry you,” he teased, barking out a laugh at his own joke. “Come over here and pucker up, Nanase.”

His studio, full of windows open to the street, made Rin’s display of teasing affection open to the public, “Careful,” Haru warned, “The whole town thinks we’re already a thing. You’re only perpetuating the rumors.”

“Ah, let ‘em talk,” he said in English, waving his hand flippantly. “Besides, married to you, that can’t be so bad.”

Haru knew Rin didn’t mean anything by the comment other than to compliment him, but it still planted a seed in his mind of married thoughts. He pictured his life married to Rin—basically, his life now, with the exception of some added intimacy he was _not_ interested in. Then he pictured his life married to Ran (too weird, too weird) who then morphed into some faceless woman with moderately soft hair and a pleasant smile and they had a dog and a white picket fence and tomato garden and whatever else married people had.

Didn’t seem all that great.

“Hmm, Haru?” He’s pulled from his thought and set his paintbrush down, swiveling in his chair to face Rin, who looked to be having similar thoughts. “Do you think their marriage would have lasted?”

Makoto and Gou. He was talking about Makoto and Gou. Haru would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it, and he was confident in his answer: “Yes.”

Run huffed, nose in the air. “So sure.”

He turned back to his painting, concentrated on a rose petal. “They were friends. They liked each other. They got along. And Makoto would have done anything for Minori’s happiness.”

“You know, I’m not entirely sure I agree.”

Haru stopped painting, brush halfway down the page in the middle of a soft pink line.

“You love a lot of people in this world,” Rin said quietly, and Haru had to fight to roll his eyes at the prospect of Rin getting all mushy and sentimental. “But there’s only one person you love the most.”

His implications were obvious, but Haru didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Besides, he was wrong anyhow. “Gou and Makoto loved each other.”

“Yeah, but Makoto loved _you_ more.”

Haru’s hand flew up to rub at his eyes, and he felt wet paint on his eyelids. “Rin. Don’t start.”

“Okay, okay,” Rin hopped to his feet and moved his hands wildly, trying to keep the topic open before Haru would try to close it for another 6 months like always. “I’m not trying to get you to make some great big love confession, because honestly, I still don’t know if what you two had was romantic.” He paused, fast walking over to Haru’s easel and getting into Haru’s line of sight. “and if it was, you don’t have to tell me _but,_ you can’t tell me you guys didn’t love each other in some way.”

No, Haru couldn’t tell Rin that. He loved Makoto very much.

“You guys were one in a million. And I say one because you were practically one person. I….I can’t really describe it because I have no idea how it _feels_ to be as close to someone as you were with Makoto. I’m not that close with you or Sousuke. I wasn’t that close with _Gou_ and she was my _sister.”_

While what Rin was saying had some validity, he failed to see how it related back to the whole marriage thing. “Are you saying,” Haru said slowly, “That Gou and Makoto wouldn’t have been happy because of _me?”_

He shrugged, like that statement didn’t bother him. “Maybe? Like I said, maybe you two didn’t kiss or anything but Makoto loved you most. And people spend their lives wanting to be with the ones that love most.”

“I was always a part of his life.”

“You know what I mean.”

Did he? “Rin…” he sighed softly, trying to wipe off some of the paint he had gotten on his face; no luck, it had already dried. He thought about his life, about what had happened and what could have happened. It was all a bunch of chaotic memories but the fondest ones had one face in particular. And something told him, if Makoto were here, he’d have a similar experience. “There’s someone I love more than Makoto.”

He gave him a skeptical look. “I swear, if you say _me_ I’m gonna—“

“My daughter.”

Rin tackled him in a hug and stained the shoulder of his shirt with happy tears.


	9. Chapter 9

When Minori came back from school her arms were piled high with art supplies. Nothing that Haru worked with on a regular basis, none of the expensive oil paints or horse-haired brushes, but rather scented markers and various colored poster board. Kid stuff.  He silently lamented the fact that his floors were going to be colored in glitter for days as she arranged them on the coffee table in the living room, next to a small pile of flowers that look plucked from around town—a lot of it was pink moss, but Haru saw a bundle of different colored roses, tulips, an iris and as well as, strangely enough, a sunflower.

“Papa,” she began. “Can you help me with my project?” she’s nothing but polite, looking up at him with patience and warmth.

It was Thursday, and he didn’t teach or paint on Thursdays, so for once he actually had some time. What came out instead was, “Depends. What kind of help do you need?” Because at the end of the day, she should probably do her own work; the last thing any of them needed was her adopting Nagisa’s horrible study habits from high school.

“We’re doing a family tree!” and she looks absolutely thrilled about it, which baffled him. Minori didn’t have a cookie-cutter family tree with a mom and a dad and two sisters and a dog or whatever. Her family tree was more of a branch that had fallen in the middle of the street after a terrible storm.

But Haru has learned to brush those thoughts aside pretty quickly and most days, it didn’t really bother him anymore. “Okay,” he nodded.

Minori bounced on her toes, looking excited. Her hands are clasped behind her back. “I need pictures,” she went on. “I have most of them, but I need some of Gou and Makoto.”

“Your…parents,” Haru drawled out slowly, so completely unlike him. Rin would grill him for being strange if he were home. “You’ll have to ask Rin for the pictures of your mother.”

“What about Makoto?”

There it was again. Haru cleared his throat. “I have pictures of your father, yes.” To be honest, he doesn’t have many, but he does have a few, back in high school. “He will look quite young. Your classmates might think him your brother.”

That had Minori in giggles. “It’s okay. Thanks, Papa.”

She scurried back into the living room after that and Haru followed, grabbing a sketch book and a few pencils that were lying on the table. Minori was quiet while she worked and Haru only looked up a few times—she had outlined the tree, with pasted green leaves and all, and from his chair she was pretty sure she had cut a picture of Rei out and arranged it on the poster board. The photo looked familiar, recent, from when they had all gone down to a barbeque on the beach.

“What are you going to put Rei as?”

“Uncle!” Minori replied without hesitation.

The front door opened just as Haru said, “Rin isn’t going to like that.”

“Rin isn’t going to like what?” Rin mumbled flatly, closing the door behind him with his foot. He gave a sharp-toothed grin when he saw the project on the table. “Hey, family tree!”

“Mmmhm!” she dug through her pile of cut out pictures. “Where’s Uncle Nagisa….”

“ _Ehhhh?”_ Rin cried. _“_ Why’s Nagisa Uncle?! I’m Uncle!”

“I can have more than one uncle!”

“Yeah but—Huh!? Rei and Sousuke too!”

“Yes! I can’t leave them out!”

“Sousuke I get, maybe even Rei but _Nagisa?_ He’s more like the family dog.”

“Uncle, that’s mean!”

Haru tuned out the argument after Rin tried to offer up actual dog breeds in comparison to Nagisa—he heard Chihuahua before his mind drifted to his own place on Minori’s family tree. He was more present than Nagisa and Rei, that was for sure, but not an uncle like Rin. His role in Minori’s life was _complicated_ and even after 5 years Haru still didn’t quite feel like he earned Makoto’s spot, no matter how much he loved Minori like his own. What right did he have, really? Not when—

No. He didn’t want to think about that.

“Oi, I thought you were making a tree?”

Haru drifted back to reality to find that Rin is poured over Minori’s green poster in scrutiny. “No,” she sighed quietly. “A tree would look funny.” she wrinkled her nose. “So I asked my teacher if I could make a garden!”

“A garden?” Haru echoed quietly.

“Yeah! Because everyone is different, it has to be a garden.”

Sure enough, Minori has arranged most of the pictures on the board in atypical fashion with no real pattern. “Papa, can I have the picture of Makoto now?”

Wordlessly, Haru got up and headed to the bedroom. He could hear Rin gabbing on about Gou as he grabbed the shoebox in the back of his closet. Hidden away, but never out of reach, Haru always knew where it was. But he hadn’t looked at what was inside in a _long time._

After much internal debate, Haru decided to let Minori pick whichever one she wanted to use. Her green eyes lit up when he set the box in front of her and she ripped off the lid with enthusiasm and squealed. Carefully, she reached in and plucked the first one on top.

“Awww, Papa look! It’s you and Nagisa when you were my age!”

Rin plucked the photo from her hands and looked with squinted eyes (maybe he should get him glasses). “Huh. This is way back in the day. Before I even knew you.”

“Ahh. Better days.”

“Shut up.”

She continued looking through the photos, marveling particularly at the photos from the swim meets that that his teams took when he was on the high school club. But they weren’t all swim related—Haru had a few others that Makoto had taken of him and Nagisa eating ice cream, and ones of him teaching Rei how to cook. Rin wasn’t in as many as he’d like (not that Haru would ever admit it) but he was still there, which was nice.

“Oh.”

Haru perked up at the softness of her voice when she got to the bottom of the shoebox. She stared at it for a long time looking very…well, _Haru Like_ in her expression and eventually….he had to ask. “Which one’s that?”

She turned it over to reveal a photo of him and Makoto sitting on the beach and talking. It was nothing particularly special or out of the ordinary, but at the same time it was. There wasn’t another photo quite like it.

“You’re laughing!” Minori whispered, like she came across treasured gold. “You and Daddy look so happy! Papa, I can see your teeth!”

It was true. Haru for the life of him couldn’t remember why he was laughing (he didn’t laugh that hard very often, clearly) but he wasn’t surprised it was because of Makoto. 

“It’s like finding a dinosaur bone,” Rin teased, reaching over and going as far as to put his fingers in Haru’s mouth. “What _do_ your teeth look like—OW!”

Well, if Rin didn’t want to get bit, maybe he shouldn’t but his fingers in his mouth. “You’re not one to be making fun of someone’s teeth.”

“God, you’re annoying.”

Minori paid no mind. “Papa, you should smile like this more often!”

It hurt to hear that. It wasn’t that easy for Haru to just…laugh like that. The person who could make it happen wasn’t around anymore. But he still managed to give her one of his small, closed-lipped smiles in return.

Her eyes twinkled and she nodded like she understood (he suspected she didn’t, but) and turned back to the photograph. “Who took this photo?”

It took a moment for Haru to remember. Rei had been chasing Nagisa down the beach for threatening to throw his glasses in the ocean for a game. So it must have been…..

“Gou.”

It fell into stories of Rin’s childhood after that, Minori giggling wildly at all the tales Rin has that involved his sister before he moved to Austrailia and tried to kick-start his swimming career. Haru tried to stay grounded in their conversation but he kept drifting to the day at the beach, trying to remember why on earth he was laughing so hard and more so, how Gou had managed to get a picture of it.

But then Haru nearly sneezed when Minori shoved a flower underneath his nose. “What do you think? Is Uncle a rose, or a tulip?”

Rin was not a _flower_ and Haru had never associated him with such (well, except the cherry blossoms. A lot of cherry blossoms. Come to think of it, Rin was pretty delicate) but he pointed to the rose and she told him she agreed.

“What about the sunflower?” and she held it up in front of her face. It covered her eyes, and he could only see her teeth poking out from her smile.

“Makoto.”

“Really?”

He could get mushy with it. Tell her Makoto was the brightest, the nicest, the warmest, but there’s a more obvious answer. “He’s the biggest.”

Minori accepted that answer, and paired the sunflower with a photo of Makoto she picked out—she kept the beach one for safe keeping and selected one of him coaching the whole lot of them at practice one day. Again, another photo by Gou. “You get the Iris, Papa. Because it’s blue.”

“I like blue.”

She wrinkled her nose in good humor. “I know.”

When he put the shoebox away after dinner, he took the beach photo out and moved it to his bedside drawer.

 

* * *

 

On his next day off, Haru picked Minori up from school to help her carry her poster back home. As she had told him, the presentation had gone well, and she wanted to keep the project to put up in her room. After all, some of the pictures she had used didn’t have copies.

What surprised him, however, was when Minori’s teacher (a sweet, old lady that loved teaching so much she was 10 year past retirement) pulled him aside.

“Minori mentioned the car accident.”

Haru’s heart nearly stopped.

“I’m very sorry,” she told him, giving his arm a squeeze. “But you should be very proud. She’s a wonderful little girl. You’re doing so well.”

Haru nodded, looking down briefly when Minori slipped her hand into his. “Thank you,” he murmured, taking Minori’s poster to hold with the other hand.

“We all loved your family garden, Minori,” he teacher told her, and Minori beamed at the praise. “It’s so nice that you have such a big and loving family.”

Minori giggled. “I know!” she looked up at Haru with excited eyes. “Papa’s the best.”

He thought of the time at the beach, sitting with Makoto and laughing about whatever it was—no, he still couldn’t remember what exactly had them laughing, but he did recall the _feeling._ It wasn’t too different from what he was feeling now.

So, he let out a single huff, teeth spilling out in a small grin.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Minori was 12 years old when history repeated itself.

Haru didn’t know how it happened. How on _earth_ did it happen? One moment he was on the beach, kicking a soccer ball around with Rei and Nagisa at one of their monthly barbeques and the next moment Rin was calling over from across the sand asking if Minori had gone back up the steps to use the bathroom.

No, last he checked, she had told him she was going for a swim. When he looked out at the ocean, however, he didn’t see her.

Haru didn’t see Minori.

She said she’d be in the water, but he _couldn’t see her._

The soccer ball hit him in the side of the head, curtesy of an oblivious Nagisa, but he paid it no mind as his eyes scanned the horizon. He wasted five long, stunned seconds just looking around before the panic hit and he nearly tripped on his own feet trying to get to the water.

“Minori!”

Rin was a little ahead of him as he dived in, just as Haru spotted a tuff of red hair poking out of some of the waves.

_She was alive._

A few scattered possibilities popped in his mind as he swam into the water, t-shirt and everything: a riptide, an injury, a freak accident, he didn’t know. Minori was a good swimmer, sure, but Haru knew a thing or two about when good swimmers made stupid mistakes: they fell into rivers or tried to swim in a storm.

Left, Right, Left Right. Kick, Kick. Where was Rin? He couldn’t see Rin. Was he under the tide? Is this a riptide? Would Rin get there in time? Would _he_ get there in time?

But he got there. It felt like forever but Haru got there first, hooking one of his arms with hers just as she was about to go under again.

“Minori,” he coughed, spraying out salt water as another wave toppled over him. Using his other arm, he tried to lift her up a little higher to keep the water out of her mouth. He took one look at her face and felt panic.

She wasn’t conscious.

Haru was sure he beat his own damn speed record getting back to shore.

Rin was already there, shouting instructions as Haru laid Minori down in the sand, forgoing the small towel and umbrella Rei had set up farther up shore.

“Minori,” and her name came out choked. He leaned in close listening for her breathing. “Minori!”

It was happening all over again.

Haru felt like crying. 

Just as Rei and Rin were sliding across from them in the sand, a miracle: Minori turned her head and coughed, just like Makoto had all those years ago. Haru and Rei each took one of her shoulders and helped her up as she coughed up the rest of the sea water, and maybe even a little bit of her lunch.

They all gave her a few moments to gather her bearings before she opened her eyes, red and stung from the salt. She whined and closed them again. “Ow…”

“Sweetheart, look at me,” Haru took a finger and hooked it under her chin, checking her face for any injuries. “Are you hurt?”

“Sorry,” she immediately apologized. Her voice was raw from the salt as well. “I don’t know what happened. One minute I was fine and then….”

“Are you hurt?” This time Rei asked it, waving his fingers in front of her.

She nodded yes, stopped, shook her head no, and then nodded again. “I don’t know. My head hurts.”

Rei dug around through her scalp, fingers checking for any contusions. “I don’t see any visible injuries.” He grabbed a towel that he had slung around his shoulder and wrapped it around Minori. “We need to get her warmed up.”

“We’ll take you to the hospital,” Rin added as Haru got a better footing and scooped her up in his arms. She felt so much lighter than she had in the ocean, but his legs felt a bit like lead.

Rin tried to take Minori when he noticed the shaking in his frame, but Haru shook his head and held her closer; she rolled her head onto his shoulder. “Sorry, Papa,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“Keep your eyes open,” he whispered, looking around the beach for the one person that could talk anyone’s ear off. “Oi, Nagisa!”

His head snapped up and he dropped everything he was packing, saying something to Nitori and Sousuke that he couldn’t catch.  “Ah, Minori-chan!” Nagisa came bounding over. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Minori whined in response, rubbing her forehead into Haru’s soaked shirt. “She needs to stay awake.”

“I’m awake,” Minori complained weakly, looking down at Nagisa who walked alongside Haru as the tried to get to Rei’s car.

“I dunno,” Nagisa teased. “You said the same thing back in Tokyo, when we were all at the Olympics? Remember? It was just the two of us.”

Minori sighed, looking over Haru’s shoulder as best she could to meet Nagisa’s gaze. “You said we’d get ice cream.”

“Ah, but only if you were awake.” Nagisa tossed her wink. “You fell asleep on the train. I had to carry you aaaaalllll the way back to the hotel. I should have gotten a gold medal for that. Do you know how much a person _weighs?”_

“She was five, Nagisa,” Rei sighed as they approached the car, opening the back door so Haru could slide in with Minori; Nagisa circled the other side. Rin got in the front seat. “And besides, I’m pretty sure the two of you had ice cream every other day on that trip anyhow.”

“It was a special occasion, Rei-chan!” Nagisa bragged, and Haru looked down to see Minori had cracked a smile. “Although, that one day they were out of our special flavors. Remember, Minori-chan?”

Minori tried to sit up, but ended up resting her head on Haru’s shoulder. “Green Tea and….Napoleon.”

Rin turned around in his seat. “Napoleon?”

“Yeah,” Minori sighed, eyes closed. “The one with strawberry, vanilla and chocolate.”

“That’s Neapolitan,” Rei corrected from the driver’s seat, pulling out into the road to get to the hospital.  “Napoleon is the name of a French military and political leader who—”

“Rei.”

“Sorry.”

“Can I go to sleep now?” Minori whined, clutching onto Haru’s shirt—the damn thing was still wet, and only Rin had been smart enough to take his off.

“No, sweetheart,” Haru mumbled, lifting her head up a bit by her chin. “Please try to stay awake.”

Sure, Haru had used the mushy endearments maybe like, _twice,_ but he felt a life and dead situation warranted them. Still, Minori stiffened beside him, feeling a little less like dead weight against his side. “Dad used to call me that.”

“Hmm?”

“Sweetheart.”

Haru remembered that. While he used the endearments quite sparingly, Makoto had used them all the time on Minori was a baby. “Yes he did.”

Beside them, Nagisa laughed. “Your dad used to call me that, too,” he joked, sighing wistfully.

“Nagisa.”

“Not sorry,” he said back and Minori joined in on his laughter.

And when he finally heard her laugh, Haru had a feeling she'd be just fine.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone has any free! fic requests, either pertaining to this fic or anything else, let me know!


	11. Chapter 11

Haru could hear the strumming from her open window as he sat in the garden, sketching the first blooming roses of the season. He was seriously behind on the last few pieces for his debut art show and seeking inspiration was proving to be difficult—but he found that nature often helped: the ocean, the beach, the garden, any kind of landscape, really.

Minori’s ukulele playing died out just before the chorus was supposed to repeat itself, yet it still hadn’t given Haru enough time to recall the tune she had been playing. He finished sketching a flaky petal on a peach rose before he craned his head towards her window at the back of the house. “What song was that?”

Haru wasn’t one for shouting, and while he had mastered the art of _projecting_ his voice, he was fairly sure his words were only noise to her. She appeared by the window, sticking her head out. “Did you say something?”

He spoke softer this time. “What song was that?”

She however, kept shouting. “Here Comes the Sun.”

“Who sings it?”

“The Beatles.”

He turned his eyes back to the sketchbook for a moment, sparing a glance or two at the flowers. “I like it.”

Minori stuck more of herself out the window, ignoring Haru’s bland warning that she’d likely fall out doing such stupid stuff—he didn’t have to look to know that’s what she was doing. “Do you like it more than Over the Rainbow?”

Haru contemplated drawing the stems. “You overplayed that one.”

He heard her laugh. “Sorry. Had to learn to play with some kind of song.” He looked up to find her sitting on the windowsill, half a leg dangling against the siding of his house (which he needed to paint, he noticed). “I was thinking of playing it at our school festival.”

“…you’ve overplayed that one,” he repeated, because he didn’t know how to tell her that he really didn’t want to hear her practice the song for two weeks.

“No, the Beatles song,” she clarified. “I even promised Akane I’d sing if we win in the next swim tournament.”

He decided to add the stems. “I didn’t know you could sing.” She more often talked through her songs than she did sing them.

“Ah….well…” Minori sounded quite sheepish. “It’s in English, so it doesn’t even matter.”

Why or how that made a difference, Haru wasn’t sure. “Speaking of English.”

She finished his sentence with an eye roll. “I finished my homework an hour ago.”

English was Minori’s least favorite subject in school. Whereas Haru would have loved to not have to try in class, she found it quite boring since she was already fluent in the language. The teacher had already called twice this year to tell her she had dozed off, and suggested she pick up something else to take when she got to high school. Probably something stupid. Like French. Minori would like that.

The sketch was looking less like a sketch and more like a real drawing. He added another flower, but it still looked strange. The stems needed thorns. Minori had reached for the ukulele and started playing again from the window, looking down into their small little garden.

The playing suddenly stopped. “When’s Uncle coming home?”

“Soon, I presume,” Haru hummed, finishing off the final touches on the flowers—no thorns, he decided. Nothing so sinister.

“Did you know what he wanted?”

Rin, the drama queen that he was, simply texted him that morning telling him he had something to tell them at dinner. Instead of just…telling him then. In the text message. “He wouldn’t say.”

Speak of the devil. “Haruuuu! Minori! I’m home.”

Minori damn near fell out the window in her attempts to swing her leg back inside. Haru took his time to pack up his pencils, listening to Minori’s pleas for Rin to go ahead and tell her what the big surprise was.

“Slow your roll, pipsqueak,” Rin said, speaking in English. How convenient. Minori adapted and switched over instantly. Haru set his pencils on the counter before turning on the stove to start dinner.

“Is it a dog? Are you getting a dog?” Minori asked.

Rin handed Haru the vegetables from the fridge while he got out the cutting board. “You don’t like dogs,” Haru pointed out.

“Ah, they’re okay.” Minori shrugged. “They’re just not as cool as turtles.”

Rin gave her an amused look. “No, it’s not a dog.” He held up a finger when Minori opened her mouth. “Or a turtle. No pet.”

Tapping her chin, her eyes drifted to the ceiling in thought. “You’re going out on a date.”

Haru snorted on reflex, and Rin didn’t hesitate to shove him roughly by the shoulder. “No, not a _date.”_ But he was blushing anyhow.

Now Minori was getting silly. “You’re going back to the Olympics!”

But Rin, however, didn’t even crack a smile. “Actually…”

Haru stopped cutting the celery.

“…that’s not too far off the mark,” he finished, running a hand through his hair, his fingers stopping to cup the back of his neck in a sheepish gesture.

Minori blinked, cocking her head to side. “What do you mean?”

With a loud sigh, Rin let his hand drop to his side. “I got a new job.”

“What kind of job?”

“One that’s…” He hesitated, looking back and forth between Haru and his niece. “…not here.”

Minori was getting more and more on edge. “Okay, so like….Tokyo?” Her voice was small, meek.

Rin grimaced, bracing a hand on the counter. “No,” he whispered. “It’s in…Sydney. I’m moving to Australia.”

The legs of the bar chair Minori had been sitting in screeched loudly as she jumped down. “What? Why? Why are you leaving?”

“To train Olympian candidates,” and his said the answer so calmly that it didn’t match the uneasy look in his eyes, the jittery way he was shifting his weight from leg to leg. “Old coach is quitting, they need someone to run the place, and I’ve got a good record with him from back in the day….” He trailed off.

A pout. “What’s wrong with training kids here?”

“Nothing,” Rin blurted. “It’s just….different. I’m better suited for teaching professionals instead of, ah, children.”

Haru felt like a bystander in a conversation he knew he was supposed to be a part of. But Minori’s energy, no matter good or bad, always overpowered him and made a shadow of him. Haru felt _something_ but he couldn’t really articulate what that something was. Minori was all over the place, fear swimming in her eyes, cheeks dusted pink with affront.

As tall as she stood in the kitchen, her voice became rather small. “You’re leaving.”

Rin’s entire face broke into something sad. “Honey—”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

This time Rin looked to Haru for help.

Before he could even _think_ of a _way_ to process this information, Minori was out the door. It wasn’t anything particularly dramatic, but she definitely made her haste to leave.

Rin went after her and Haru heard him shout down the steps of the house, but he made no real effort to run after her. “Damn it,” he cursed and Haru realized they were _still_ speaking in English. “I thought this would go better.”

Silence crept up and Haru knew he had to say something. There are a million things he could have said: congratulations maybe being one of them, but instead Haru said:  

“I’ll go get her.”

 

* * *

 

He found her at the beach sitting right in the tide. Unlike Makoto, her near drowning accident hadn’t deterred her from the ocean at all—she harbored no fear. The waves crept up past her legs and licked at her waist. Haru sat beside her, almost shoulder to shoulder.

Haru picked at some of the dry sand behind him, running it through his fingers. He was suddenly brought to the little adventure Rin dragged him on years ago. How they stood on the sand and he told him how he’d imagine Haru and all their friends were just beyond the horizon, a skip and a hop beyond the curvature of the earth.

Australia had a funny way of drawing Rin back in. There was such a huge _part_ of him that was there, a life that he had as a kid, he knew there wasn’t a way he’d ever really be able to leave it completely behind. Rin was emotional, passionate, and a romantic. He put every part of him in everything he did. So of course Haru knew he’d go back one day.

He just wondered if Minori would go back with him.

Nine years. Haru had been taking care of her for _nine_ years. He thought of her as his own. He loved her so much, but there was still a part of him (stupid, foolish, petulant) that thought she’d leave, too. Makoto’s daughter was as much his daughter now too. She called him Papa. Called him _Dad._ She thought him her own father but he still felt like he didn’t measure up. That he couldn’t compete. It didn't stop him from trying to be enough, though. He had to be enough for her.

Sure, Haru was no stranger to learning how to live without: his parents, his grandmother, Gou, Makoto…so learning to live without Rin? Managable. The two of them did it once, they could do it again.

But learning to live without Minori would be hard. More than hard. Impossible. He feared it more than anything.

He reached over and scratched at her scalp with his fingers, tugging her head down so her cheek rested against his shoulder. “I’ll get you a turtle,” he mumbled.

She turned her head and felt her grin into his arm.

And just like that, he felt his fears being swept away by the tide that licked at their feet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minori is about 13 at this point and Haru should be 32, if I've done the math correctly. I think one more chapter, maybe two? I will get into how Makoto & Gou died eventually, I promise lmao.
> 
> people have been telling me that haru & rin aren't TOO out of character so!!!! that's good!!!! haha I hope.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> daddy/daughter dance it's pretty fluffy lmao

Haru was in the kitchen baking when Minori nearly _rammed_ through front door, kicking her shoes off in a messy haste. Her red hair was still wet from swim practice, plastered to her face, and her eyes were bright. “Papa, guess what Rin just told me?”

“He’s getting married.”

“He’s getting _marr—_ wait, you knew?”

He spared her one last glance before he went back to icing the last of the cupcakes he had set out to cool. “He called me about an hour ago.” He pushed a cupcake her way. “Try this.”

Minori smiled broadened (if possible) as she plucked the cupcake from his hand, taking a tentative bite. “I didn’t know that he was even _dating_ Sousuke. Did you?”

Honestly, between the biannual holiday visits and the semi-frequent chats they’d had in the past two years since he moved, Haru didn’t even think to ask if Rin was dating someone. Well, it really wasn’t in his nature to pry anyhow, but he figured Rin would tell him if it ever arose. But according to Rin, ever since Sousuke moved down with him to work as the physiotherapist for the swim team, their relationship “snuck up on him”, to use his words.

“I didn’t,” Haru admitted. “But I’m not all that surprised.”

Her mouth was full of a cupcake, and she had the decency to wait until she swallowed; her head bobbed up in down in her anticipation. “Me neither,” she finally said, mouth still a bit sticky. “What’s in this?”

“Dark chocolate and red wine. Good?”

“Oh yeah,” she agreed, taking another bite. “You should make these for their wedding.”

“That sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.”

She laughed lightly, taking her index finger and swiping the icing off what remained of the cupcake. “What if I promise to help you?”

He shot her a long, flat look. “You’re a terrible cook.”

Rather sheepishly, she shrugged before licking her finger clean. “I can ice the cupcakes?”

“Maybe.” He didn’t think it really mattered, since he was sure Sousuke wouldn’t allow such a big fuss. Rin would probably want something simple and cheesy, like a ceremony on the beach. There had to be water, of course, but Haru had suspicion that there might be a lot of flowers. Truth be told, Haru didn’t really know what to expect. Rin’s romantic tendencies weren’t something he could keep up with.

He got swept up imagining _Rin’s wedding,_ he almost didn’t hear her whisper his name. “Haru?”

He blinked rapidly, shifting his gaze to meet hers. He saw it in her face, in the downward tug of her lips in a slight frown. With all this wedding talk, he knew exactly what she was going to ask. So, with a quick swipe of icing from his piping bag, he reached over and smudged her nose in cream cheese icing.

“I’m happy,” he said softly, giving her a faint smile. “Don’t question that.”

Minori didn’t look so convinced—she wasn’t even bothered by the icing on her face. “Yeah, but…what happens when I’m not here? I go to college in a few years. You’ll get lonely.”

“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Crush.”

“No, I’ll take him with me.”

“No pets allowed in dorms.”

“But he’s a _turtle._ He won’t make a mess or any noise. _”_

Haru shrugged. He didn’t make the rules. “Well, with that logic, you can probably sneak him in.”

Her eyes narrowed, looking skeptical. “Yeah…but that would be….” She pursed her lips together. “…wrong?” and she drew out the word like she couldn’t decide if her moral compass was being tested.

But as far as Haru was concerned, it seemed like a silly rule. And he didn’t care if stupid rules were broken. “You’d probably get away with it,” he shrugged again, and Minori laughed her little bell like laugh.

“Okay,” she told him, unwrapping the paper on the cupcake. “Then I’ll have to get you another pet.”

He wanted a fish tank. “Aquarium.”

“Papa, you cannot hug fish.”

“You can’t hug a turtle, either.”

She didn’t react to his slight dig. “What about a cat?”

He remembered the white cat that used to live outside his house when he was in high school. It never came inside the house or anything, but he left food out for it during the winter. “….I like cats,” he finally said.

Minori’s eyes lit up. “Yeah? Great!” and she finished the cupcake in one last giant bite. “I’m going to get you a cat.” and how Haru understood a word out of her mouth was a miracle.

The timer on the oven dinged and Haru took his time checking to make sure the next batch of cupcakes were ready to come out. While they cooled, he started filling another pipe bag with cream cheese, and he felt Minori’s stares as she surveyed the rest of the kitchen counter. “What are you making?” she finally asked.

He nodded to the cooling rack before he went ahead and started chopping the salmon into thin pieces. “Cupcakes.”

“With _fish?”_

“Yes.”

Another beat passed. “….but why not mackerel?”

He almost laughed. “I wanted to try a recipe and see how it tasted before I went about and tweaked it myself.” He passed her a piece of fish. “So for right now: salmon.”

As much as Minori would probably love to eat cupcakes for dinner, she did have a swim meet the next day, and a stomach full of chocolate and fish probably wasn’t the meal to swim on. She took the fish and plopped it in her mouth, wiping her fingers on the front of her pants. “Mackerel cupcakes at Rin and Sousuke’s wedding would be _amazing,”_ she taunted, clearly trying to get him to bite on the whole catering gig. Haru could admit to himself that it did sound tempting. It would certainly annoy Rin to a degree that wasn’t harmful—which was his favorite kind of annoying.

“It’ll have to be a surprise,” Haru finally said and Minori squealed before it faded out into a hearty cackle. As cool, calm and collected as she was, her laugh was strangely…loud. And nerdy. Kinda like Rei’s. “He won’t willingly allow them there.”

“I know,” she agreed. “We’ll have to make a bunch. This chocolate one was good.”

“I wanted to try a peppermint and licorice one.”

“We could also do strawberry cheesecake! Nagisa would like that.”

The more Haru thought about it, the more he actually liked the idea of baking and cooking everything for the ceremony. “Coffee, Sousuke likes coffee.”

“Ooh, maybe a cookie one?”

“There’s also an avocado recipe I wanted to try.”

“Yeah, and we could—wait, _avocado?”_

“You like avocado.”

“Not in a cupcake!”

He shrugged her skepticism off, feeling confident that if he made it, it would turn out good. “We’ll see,” is all he ended up saying before they settle into a quiet spell.

But while Minori certainly _could_ be quiet, and often was, she preferred getting him to talk with her—not that he minded. It was something he’d gotten used to over the years. Long were the days where he had a best friend who spoke for him. “We should be each other’s dates to the wedding.”

Not what he expected to hear. “How come?”

“Because we both can’t dance,” she laughed warily. “I learned my lesson at Nagisa and Rei’s wedding. They made me dance all night.”

Haru quirked his lips in a half smile and went back to slicing the last of the salmon before garnishing the top of the desserts. “What makes you think I won’t make you dance?”

It was worth it to look back up and see her face almost frozen in confusion. “What? You can’t dance. You’ve never danced,” she stressed. “…can you dance?”

He put down the pipe back and untied his apron—long gone were the days when he cooked in his swimsuit. Instead, he re-rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt and pushed them higher up his arms before he stepped out behind the kitchen island and gestured for Minori to take his hand.

At fifteen, Minori still had a bit more growing to do, but she was certainly tall for her age. Or at least it felt that way. Every time he saw her, he felt like she was taller and he just hoped she wouldn’t be taller than him anytime soon. “My mom made me take a dance class once, when I was ten,” Haru explained, guiding her hand to his arm while he put his on the back of her shoulder. He held her other hand gently. “I only went two times, but I remember.”

Minori’s expression was a mix of discomfort and surprise as she tried not to fidget. She stood tall to match his posture. “It only took you two classes?”

He didn’t say anything, instead leading her in a basic swaying, of stepping back and forth in circles around the kitchen. There was stumbling at first at the expense of Haru’s socked feet, but Minori caught on pretty quickly. Her smile was wide and pretty, crowded teeth sparkling as she glanced back and forth between their clasped hands and their moving feet. “Hey, you’re pretty good.”

Just to show off, he twirled her around, and she let out of her more nerdy laughs.

But soon her smile faded, and her brow creased in thought. “I did this once when I was younger.”

Haru didn’t recall. “Hmm?”

“Back when Mom and Dad were still alive,” she whispered, and she sounded so _happy._ “I remember standing on his feet and we danced around the living room.”

Their dancing slowed, but Haru held her hand a little tighter.

“Dad started singing too, and Mom was trying not to laugh because it sounded so _bad.”_

Minori didn’t remember a lot of her parents, and Haru knew it frustrated her from time to time. She told him she had a few memories of being tucked in at night and one at the beach, but aside from that her whole life had been him and Rin. It was hard to miss something she didn’t know very well, but she wanted those memories, if she could reach inside herself and find them. She wanted to remember them, even if it meant missing them.

“Papa?”

Haru picked up the pace in their dancing again, if only slightly.

“Were…Gou and Makoto married?” she finished.

His voice was soft. Gentle. “No.”

“Were they thinking of getting married?”

He could lie to her. Tell her that their parents were madly in love, just waiting for the right moment before they all had a nice ceremony to tie the knot. No one would know the wiser, especially her, who barely remembered standing on Makoto’s toes.

But he wouldn’t do that to her. He answered honestly.

“No.”

She was quiet after that, concentrating on dancing instead. Haru twirled her around one more time, but her gaze was constantly distant, staring absently past his shoulder. When she did finally look at him again, her brows were creased with slight worry. “They liked each other, right?”

“Yes,” he whispered gently. “They were very good friends. They did.”

“But they didn’t love each other. Not enough to get married.”

Haru stopped dancing all together.

“Papa,” she murmured, squeezing his hand. In turn, Haru’s eyes fluttered shut in grim anticipation.

“…did you love Makoto?”

The rest of the question went unasked: e _nough to get married?_ He knew that was what she meant. But no one, not even his daughter, Makoto’s own flesh and blood, could even begin to understand what Makoto was to Haru. Rin had scratched the surface more than one time, trying to get an answer, trying to _understand_ that feeling that…neither of them could articulate. Would Haru marry Makoto? He didn’t know. But did he _love_ him….

Haru brushed some of Minori’s wet bang off her forehead. “More than he ever knew.”

His daughter’s smile bloomed slowly, like petals unfolding on a flower, eyes crinkling slightly in delight. “I bet he knew,” she giggled, twirling herself in Haru’s arms.

She started the dance again, this time picking up the pace and trying to get him to abandon all form and simply jump around and swing their arms wildly about the kitchen. The whole thing was pretty silly and Haru felt _pretty silly_ , his emotions suddenly all over the place, and started to chuckle. He knew he was smiling, almost grinning when Minori started to sing that Beatles song she loved so much.

“Aha! Don't hide them!” she pointed to his mouth. “Teeth!” she laughed, clacking her own together two times for emphasis.

His teeth finally shined through and he his laugh got just a bit louder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im disgusting this whole fic is disgusting


	13. Chapter 13

“Minori!” Haru shouted down the hall. “Hurry up. Your team is waiting outside.”

Prone to Haru’s own affinity for being late, Minori had accidentally slept through her alarm that morning and got a bit of a late start. “Sorry, sorry!” and Haru heard a soft thunk before she came bursting into the kitchen, red hair in a messy bun and track jacket tied around her waist.

He handed her an apple and a banana, as well as a small bento for her lunch. “Remember to stay hydrated, too.”

“I will,” she told him around the apple she had stuck in her mouth while she tried to balance on one foot to put her socks on. “You’re going to be there tomorrow night, right?”

As fate would seem to have it, Haru had his Very Important Business Meeting in Osaka the same day that Minori had her two-day National swim tournament in Tokyo. They were both getting a days head start. It was unavoidable for him to miss the first day, but if he was quick and efficient, he would be able to make the finals, provided that Minori swam her hardest and made it to the last round.

“I’ll be there if you’ll be there,” he told her and she grinned, giving him a thumbs up and a wink as she took another bite of her apple

“You got it!”

There was another honk from down the steps at the street. “Better get going.” Haru nodded to the door. “Good Luck.”

“Thanks.” She reached out on the tips of her toes (she didn’t grow to be any taller than him, in the end) and pecked him on the cheek with sticky lips. “Love you. Have a safe trip.”

“You too.”

 

* * *

 

**Minori:** [one photo attached] AHHH OUR RELAY TEAM CAME IN SECOND WE’RE GOING TO BE IN THE FINAL ROUND TOMORROW NIGHT!

Haru managed a quick glance at his phone before he looked back up at the conference table where Diane Li was looking over the plans that he had brought along. He was going to be pretty peeved if she didn’t end up liking them since Haru had to convince _Ren_ to drive all the way from his new home in Osaka to Iwatobi and back since he couldn’t carry all his stuff on the train.

After minutes of questions and answers and extreme scrutiny of his work, she finally came out and gave her opinion. “They’re very good,” she smiled at him. “I really like the local flair you’ve given them. I think that we can _definitely_ work together on this, Nanase-san.”

Haru’s phone buzzed again:

**Minori:** I also made the finals in my individual race too :3

He felt himself smiling like an idiot as he typed back a quick reply:

**Papa:** I’m very proud of you.

“Nanase-san?”

It was like he was back in high school being caught by a teacher with his phone. Which was an extra weird feeling since Haru never got caught with a phone in high school to begin with. He didn’t think he even used his phone much in high school. “Sorry,” he apologized. “That was my daughter.”

But she didn’t look angry at all. In fact, Diane’s eyes brightened a bit. “Oh? Telling her the good news?”

“Other way around.” He slid the phone her way, the screen open to the photo Minori had just sent him. “She and her swim team made it to the final round in Nationals.”

“Wow!” Diane laughed, picking up the phone and squinting before she pushed her glasses from the top of her head down to the bridge of her nose. “What a great group of girls. That’s quite an accomplishment. Which…?”

“The one with the red hair. Her name is Minori.”

Again, Diane laughed. “Didn’t really inherit your looks, huh?” to which Haru simply shrugged. “When are the finals?”

“Tonight.” He glanced at the clock in the room. “I’ll leave soon to drive back.”

“Well in that case,” and she straightened all the various papers, drawings, and sketches into as neat a pile as she could. “I won’t keep you too long. I just want to get a little more information and then we can call the contractors another day.” She scooted his phone back across the table. “I know my son would flip out if I missed one of his basketball tournaments.”

Haru gave a grateful smile. At first he had been nervous that all these big time business people with fancy suits and expensive cars would be hard to work with, but Diane had been nothing but friendly. “Thank you, Li-san.”

 

* * *

 

But while the meeting went better than expected, his travel plans did not.

“Ren.”

_“Dude, I’m so sorry. I wish I could leave but I’m tied up at work. I can’t exactly ask to bail. I just started.”_

Haru gave a frustrated sigh. Apparently, Ren hadn’t planned his work schedule accordingly and there was no way he could leave his office in time for them to make the drive up to Tokyo in time for the last race. He checked his watch—if he didn’t leave within the hour, he’d miss it. He’d have to take a train. But as he adjusted the two portfolios and _three_ canvases beside him on the bench outside Diane’s office, he knew he’d have to put them somewhere safe, since he couldn’t really carry this to and on a train. “Where are you?”

_“Huh? The office. I just told you.”_

A roll of the eyes. “No, what’s the address.”

_“Oh! Uh….I’m not sure…I’m in the big pointy building on the west side….”_

Haru pinched the bridge of his nose and failed to swallow back his annoyed sigh. “Ren, I can’t drop off my stuff without an address.”

_“Why would you drop off your stuff?”_

“I can’t take it on the train.”

_“You don’t need to take a train. Just take the car. I street parked it outside my apartment. You remember where that is, yeah?”_

Haru could kill him. “I can’t drive, Ren.”

_“Sure you can! I left the keys in there, doors unlocked.”_

Ren was truly an idiot. Who leaves their car unlocked with the keys inside? This was some Nagisa shit. “No, Ren, I can’t _drive.”_

The other line was silent for a long time. All Haru could hear were the sounds of his co-workers tapping and typing away at the other cubicles. _“Haru,”_ he eventually said and Haru sucked in a sharp breath. _“It’s been  almost 15 years.”_

Haru closed his eyes. “Ren—”

_“Look, I have to get back to work,”_ Ren suddenly said with a cough. _“Keys are in the car. You can take it, I can survive without it for a few days. Maybe you and Minori can make a pit stop for lunch on your way home tomorrow.”_

“Ren, please—”

And then Ren’s voice dropped to a quiet, quiet whisper. _“Safe travels, Haru-chan.”_

He hung up.

 

* * *

 

Haru probably spent 10 minutes staring at Ren’s car.

Luckily, Ren’s dinky little city apartment was only 3 blocks from Diane’s office complex and Haru was able to carry all his stuff that far. As promised, the car was unlocked in front of his building (and by a miracle, unstolen) and he didn’t put much thought into loading the stuff into the trunk.

Getting into the driver’s seat was an entirely different story.

But after 10 minutes even Haru thought he must have looked pretty weird just standing there, so he thought it best that he at least sit inside the car until he could manage to sort all this out.

As it would turn out, it did nothing to calm his nerves, especially when he realized 13 years was quite some time to have not driven a car. None of the buttons and levers were in the same place; where was the gear shift? Not to mention the car was parallel parked in a rather _tight_ space. Haru was going to need all his patience if he was going to pull out into the street with everything in one piece.

He really could use a refresher course.

Doing his best to remember what Ren had done on their way up here, Haru fiddled around until he found the built in phone with the voice activation. He said, “Call Rin.” At least 4 times before Haru remembered this was _Ren’s car_ and tried it again with, “Call Sharkface.”

It rang four times before he picked it up. “ _Hello?”_

“Rin, it’s Haru.”

_“Haru? What are you doing on Ren’s phone?”_

“I’m in his car.” He paused, but not long enough for Rin to reply. “Where’s the gear shift?”

_“Huh?”_

“The gear shift. Where is it?”

Rin grumbled in the background and he could hear him tell Sousuke he was on the phone. _“Everything’s an automatic these days. Why do you need to know?”_

Haru wasn’t quite sure what the reaction would be to this reveal. “Because I’m about to drive Ren’s car.”

Apparently, the reaction is delayed, which he would find funny if he hadn’t been so damn nervous about driving a car. _“Wait, does this mean you used to drive a manual? I had no idea—wait, WHAT?”_

Repeating it was pointless, but he did so anyway. “I’m about to drive.” Next question. “How do I get out of a parallel parking spot?”

  _“Since when did you start driving!?”_

“In about 2 minutes when I get out of this parking spot. Ren parked stupidly close to the other people. How do I get out.”

_“I—you—but I don’t—“_ Haru rolled his eyes. Rin didn’t take surprised very well. _“I….sorry, did you ask a question?”_

Haru took a deep, deep breath and tried to steady his already clammy hands. “Rin,” he bit out. “I am doing my best to stay calm right now. I have to drive to Tokyo to make it to the swim tournament but I can’t do that until I get out of the parking spot so tell me how to get out of the parking spot.” That was probably the most he'd spoken at one time in a long ass time.

Rin is quiet for a moment. _“You just…make sure the wheel is straight. Uh….”_ Hecould practically hear him scratching his head in thought. _“Is the wheel straight?”_

Haru turned the car on and spent a moment looking for the correct lever before he fixed the wheel. “It is now.”

_“Good. Put it in reverse and go back as much as you can.”_

“I don’t know if there’s any room—”

_“Just as much as you can, Haru.”_

He did so. “Now what.”

_“Put it back into drive. Then, before you lift your foot off the brake, turn the wheel right as much as it’ll go. And then just….ease out into traffic when it’s clear. Slowly.”_

This was incredibly stupid. Haru knew that pulling out of a parallel parking spot wasn’t _that_ hard, even if it was a tight squeeze, but here he was: having to have Rin talk him through it. For his dignity’s sake, he tried to do it as quickly and efficiently possible. And lo and behold, after about 15 painfully slow seconds, Haru made it out into the street.

Only to have someone honk at him. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

_“Did you look before you pulled out?”_ Rin sighed over the phone.

“I did,” he bit back. “I just…”

Rin had gotten too good at reading him over the years. “ _You have to keep driving, Haru. Go down the road. Stop at the lights. Remember, red means stop, green means—”_

“I got it, I know.” Haru gave the woman behind him a wave to signal he was sorry before he put his foot on the gas and eased into the speed limit.

He drove in relaxing silence before Rin’s taunting voice came back over the speaker. _“Well I’ll be damned. Haruka Nanase back behind the wheel again.”_

“Shut up.”

_“You want me to stay with you for a bit longer, or…?”_

Honestly, he _did_ just in case he had another stupid driving question, but Haru figured he’d save as much of his dignity as possible. “I think I’m okay.”

_“Well, alright. Give me or Sousuke a call if you need more help.”_

“I’ll be fine. Thanks, Rin.”

 

* * *

 

Haru was totally not fine.

The first two hours weren’t too bad. The traffic wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be, and he was making good time. Almost too good of time; he wondered why nobody was on the road. It was a pleasant overcast day, no sun to shine in his eyes, no fog to blind him. It was perfect.

Then the thunder cracked and the rain came pouring down.

The windshield wipers were going fast, but they _had_ to be able to go faster—there was no way the rain was falling that hard. Haru was practically driving blind with clammy hands. Not to mention the inside of the car was fogging up. He couldn’t remember how to get rid of the fog caused by the humidity. AC, right? Not heat, that was frost…

Then he heard a quick honk when he got a little too close to another lane.

It wasn’t an aggressive honk—just a quick little warning, but it still had him shaking. He was such an idiot. How could he do that? How could he let that happen? He had been a little too distracting adjusting the windshield wipers, and just because of that, he almost got in another goddamn accident.

Haru was just thinking the AC was making a weird noise when he realized it was the sound of his own hyperventilation and pulled over to the shoulder of the road.

He needed to calm down. Haru needed to _calm down._ He thought about calling Rin again but decided against it. He’d bothered him enough for the day. Besides, what could Rin possibly say that could calm him down? Rin was anything but calm. Nagisa, he wouldn’t do any good either. He talked to fast. Rei, he was logical, yes, but logical wasn’t what he needed right now.

There was only one person he wanted to talk to.

Fiddling with the controls again, Haru managed to activate the car phone again. The phone rang just once before it picked up.

_“Ren! Are you and Papa on your way? I know there’s a bit of rain down there, but maybe you missed it if you left early enough.”_

Instantly, Haru felt a lot calmer than he did. The dizziness started to wane.

_“Ren? You there?”_

He took a deep breath. “No, it’s just Haru. Ren couldn’t make it. He,” A small hiccup. “Couldn’t leave work.”

_“Whaaaat? Man, that sucks! Well, at least you’re still coming—wait, why do you have Ren’s phone? And how are you getting here?”_

“I don’t,” Haru whispered, and he wondered if she could hear him over the rain pounding against the windshield. “I’m borrowing his car.”

Minori was silent for a moment. Then, _“I didn’t think you knew how to drive.”_

There was a scolding tone there, maybe, but it was more curious than anything else. “No, I know how,” he swallowed thickly. He was struck with the thought that maybe his license had expired, though. “I just don’t like it.”

Another few beats passed, but this time Haru picked up on some background noise. He heard Minori whisper to one of her teammates that she was going to step out for a few minutes and that she would be back soon. _“Hey, Papa,”_ she began, _“It’s okay. Here, I think I might know something that’ll help.”_

Maybe Haru sounded a little more worse for wear than he thought if Minori instantly thought he was a mess (he was, but he thought he could at least hide it. Guess not).

_“Go through Ran’s music. Can you figure out how to get to the selection menu?”_

First Rin and now his 17 year old daughter was walking him through how to work a car too. But he found it easily enough. “Now what?”

_“There’s something I want you to listen to. Go to artists. I don’t remember if I put it under Minori or Tachibana, but I definitely uploaded it to Ren’s car.”_

There was nothing under Minori, so he checked Tachibana. “Found it,” he murmured, and noticed there were only six songs; not really a full album.

_“Click play.”_

He chose the first song. Instantly, he recognized the tune. “Here comes the sun.”

Her voice was soft and soothing. _“Mmmhm. I played that at the school festival last year. Akane recorded it. I know I’m not a great singer, but I think my ukulele playing was on point.”_

“I like that song.”

_“I know you do,”_ and he could practically hear her bright grin. _“There’s a few others on there, including Over the Rainbow, so you’ll have to grin and bear it.”_

Right now, he couldn’t love that overplayed song any more if he tried. “I’m sure it’s wonderful.”

_“You’re just saying that ‘cause you have to!”_ she laughed. When her giggles died down, she dropped her voice and asked, _“Do you think that’ll help? You know, with the whole driving situation. I know that uh…”_ she paused. _“…driving in the rain could be scary.”_

Minori knew. She remembered.  She knew exactly why he had trouble driving. “Minori, I’m sorry.”

_“It wasn’t your fault. No one blames you. No one ever blamed you.”_

But he was driving. Haru was driving the car. If he had reacted more quickly when the other car ran that stupid red light….if he had just braked a second sooner maybe…maybe…..

_“Papa, please. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”_

Haru knew that in theory, but here he was almost 15 years later and he hadn’t completely forgiven himself. There were times, fleeting moments, where he would remember their faces and think if it weren’t for him, they’d still be alive.

_“I love you.”_

Haru took a shuddering breath and calmed himself. “I love you too, sweetheart.”

_“Think you can make it to Tokyo?”_

The rain, while still there, had started to lighten up, at least to the point where the windshield wipers wouldn’t have to work so hard. Besides, he had made it halfway, so turning around would be pointless. But most importantly: he had promised Minori he’d be there.

“You tell Rei and Nagisa to save me a seat. I’ll be there.”

He drove the rest of the way with Minori's singing on repeat.

 

* * *

He made it just in time.

Getting into the complex was easy, especially with his kind of history. People from years back remembered him and led him the right way where he found a seat in the bleachers waiting for him beside Rei and Nagisa.

“There you are!” Nagisa yelled, dramatic arm gesture and all. “Talk about cutting it close. They’re about to start the finals for backstroke in literally 3 minutes.”

Haru smiled, patting Rei on the shoulder with a friendly squeeze before he fished out his phone and dialed Minori’s number.

_“I’m about to go up on the blocks in like 60 seconds so you better be calling me tell me you’re here.”_

He laughed. “Look up. Third row beside the blocks.”

He saw her red hair whip around before her face broke out in a wide smile. _“You made it!”_

“I said I would. Swim hard, okay?”

_“After all the trouble you went to? I’ll definitely place. You believe me!”_

As it turned out, she did just that—second place. And for her relay team? Third.

Afterwards, when he found her among the crowds, she ran into him with a crushing hug.  “Wow, I can’t believe I pulled that off!”

Haru kissed the top of her head. “I do.”

She elbowed him in the ribs before she pulled him in for another hug.

“Thanks for making it, Papa,” she murmured into his chest.

Before he could say anything in return, her swim coach tapped on their shoulders and the two looked up to find her waving a camera around. "You want a victory photo?"

Minori looked up at Haru, hopeful, and he laughed, poking her nose. "I'll take one with you," he told her, and he felt warm when her face lit up. 

His daughter knocked her teeth together a few times. "Only if you smile with your  _teeth."_

"Okay, okay!" Haru laughed again, giving her nose a good tap. "I'll smile with my  _teeth."_

They heard the distinct sound of a  _click_ before the coach turned the camera around and passed it to them to see. _  
_

She had caught the exact moment when they were both laughing and smiling. He felt his heart swell.

It was the same laugh Gou had caught on the beach 15 years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk why I suddenly have an urge to write this fic over all my other fics but whatever. one last chapter and then it's done. so yeah, now you know how makoto and gou pretty much died :((((((((( poor haru. 
> 
> also haru's business meeting was vague on purpose. you'll find out what he's doing in the last chapter.


	14. Chapter 14

Before Haru knew it, Minori was graduating high school.

The last year had gone by in a bit of a blur—Haru found himself busy beyond belief, busier than he had ever been. And he was a former _Olympian._ But this was different. Swimming was a narrow focus, and he only had to work hard on the same thing over and over again. These days, if Haru wasn’t nose deep in flour in his kitchen, he was painting at his studio, or overseeing the construction site with Diane. Minori was busy too: with one last year at Iwatobi High and a 2nd place backstroke medal at Nationals under her belt, she trained hard to come up on top at the next women’s National meet. In the end, she only got second again, but it was still worthy enough for a scouting offer from several colleges across the country.

They saw each other as much as they could, but they were both very busy her last few months of high school which seemed a tragedy since she’d be leaving soon. But Haru knew if he got everything ready by her graduation, it would all be worth it. He was going to make her graduation the best day ever.

It started with Rin.

The doorbell was ringing _incessantly,_ but Haru wanted Minori to answer the door. But, like always, she was running late.

“Who’s at the door!?” she finally shouted with the ringing had taken on a musical tune.

Haru played dumb. “I don’t hear anything.”

She finally appeared completely ready in a whirl of red hair that she had taken the time to curl that afternoon. “You must have too much water in your ears if you couldn’t hear—RIN!”

There was a sharp, girlish cry from outside (Rin) before Haru heard a loud thump. He walked slowly to the doorway to find Rin struggling to hold a very excited Minori who had latched on to his front like a koala bear.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here!?” Minori screamed, and Sousuke stood in the back with both his and Rin’s stuff, looking on with a fond chuckle. “Haru said you couldn’t make it!”

“Surprise!” her uncle laughed, but the word sounded stressed. “But sweetie, I’m not as young as I used to be so if you could…”

Before Haru could get some snide comment about his age, Minori shook her head, burying into the crook of his neck. “No.”

“No?!”

“No!” she laughed. “I haven’t seen you in over a year, deal with it.”

Rin looked to Haru for some assistance, but he only shrugged in response. With a roll of his eyes and a smile tugging on his face, Rin proceeded to do his best to walk through the door with his niece completely hanging on him.

“You might want to just start going down the stairs,” Haru said as he rolled the sleeves of his button up and adjusted his tie. “We were supposed to leave the house about 10 minutes ago.”

Rin shot Haru another dirty look before he took a few steps backwards out towards the door.

As Minori hopped off and tried to weasel Sousuke into a piggyback ride, Haru went back and grabbed the pair of heels he knew she wanted to wear.

He found the three of them at the bottom of the stairs, Minori on Sousuke’s back, kicking her bare feet. When she caught Haru halfway down the stairs she shouted, “I forgot my shoes can you—”

He held them silently above his head.

“Thank you, Papa!”

.

.

“I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Diploma clutched in her hand, Minori’s smile brightened even further. In her heels, she was as tall as he was, and she bumped into him, shoulder to shoulder. Her hair was all in her face from the breeze. “Another one? I thought Rin was the surprise.”

“Rin is part of the surprise.”

She continued to pester him with questions while they waited for the whole team to show up: Nagisa and Rei had met them there, as well as Nitori, Minori’s grandparents, Ran and Ren, and hell even Haru’s parents showed up as well.

Haru collected all of their phones and punched in an address. “Drive here,” he told them all.

“Oooh!” Nagisa awed. “Is this like, a treasure hunt?”

“No,” Rei countered, yanking the phone to look at it more closely. “Isn’t this that old shack on the shore—”

“Just go,” Haru told them, tugging Minori along. “We’ll meet you there.”

.

.

Haru drove them to a restaurant.

“Oh!” Minori exclaimed, “This is that old crab shack that got shut down a few years ago.” She got out of the car and listened to the waves crashing against the sand; it was right near the shore. “Did they put in a new restaurant? Are we eating lunch here?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it called?”

He had thought about this a long time. He had gone through a bunch of names, but in the end only one felt right.

“ _Minori’s_.”

She stopped, confused. “What?”

“It’s called _Minori’s_ ,” he repeated softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as they walked to the entrance. “ _Minori’s Coastal Grill_. The sign is the last thing that needs to go up.”

He could feel her breath grow rapid, saw her eyes blink rapidly with disbelief. “I’m sorry…I don’t…” she looked up at him with shiny eyes. “This is your restaurant?”

Haru nodded. “Yeah. It’s why I’ve been so busy lately.”

“Why didn’t you tell me!?”

“Surprise, remember?”

Minori let out a great bellowing laugh, throwing her head back into the wind. “Wow! This is…this is incredible! Can we…?” and she pointed to the front door.

“Everyone else is in there, go on ahead—oof!” and he was cut short when Minori grabbed his arm and tugged him roughly inside.

Once inside, she froze.

As an artist, Haru put a lot of thought into and design. He worked alongside architects to redesign the building, worked with interior designers to make the furniture, the kitchen, all of it. A lot of people helped him to make this possible.

But there was one aspect that he made sure was his entire doing.

All of the others had made it before him, and one of Haru’s staff members had let them in to explore. The tables of food, samples from his menu, went untouched as friends and family were all absorbed in the paintings and the sketches that covered the walls across the restaurant.

Minori stepped forward, jaw clenched tightly and green eyes bright with brimming tears. Her lips were pursed together and Haru swore he heard a small whimper before her hand came to rest against her chest. “Mommy…” she whispered, and her other hand hovered over the painting of Gou.

Haru went through a lot of albums, both his own and the ones that Rin’s mother had at her house, to find the perfect photos to use. His specialty was watercolors: he liked the whimsical, faded quality to it, but this time he took extra care to capture emotion, to capture the smiles and brightness of her red eyes, long lashes and delicate face. The beach background was minimal to keep focus on Gou and the way she held her little daughter above her head under the shade of a rainbow beach umbrella. He took extra time to make the smiles match and the curve of their noses touch as they laughed.

“Oh, Papa,” Minori breathed, “It’s beautiful.”

Haru smiled, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “There’s more.”

Minori walked around and got lost in it all: there was a large framed paper of charcoal sketches of Sousuke, mostly rolling his shoulder, or sitting on the edge of a pool talking and helping Nitori with his swimming, as well as a painting of Rei and Minori when she was younger, trying to calm her down after she fell and scraped her knee: those were by past the entrance, near the kitchen.

As she continued walking around, Minori passed a crying Rin, standing in front of another watercolor of him and Haru at the Tokyo Olympics: they had their foreheads pressed together, Rin’s arms up in a victory, his wide grin a contrast to Haru’s meek smile.

“I forgot your hair wasn’t always grey,” Minori teased lightly, but Haru just gave an amused huff before he gave her back a small push, urging her to keep walking.

She passed another portrait of Gou, this one just a sketch, but Haru had taken extra effort to catch all her eccentricities, from the wild wave of her animated hands, to her proud and confident posture. There was another painting that Minori recognized from her time at the Olympics, her and Nagisa as he handed her an ice cream cone—Neapolitan.

Then, just as she neared the back of the restaurant she gasped.

“Daddy,” she whispered, completely crying at this point. “It’s Daddy.”

The first one was one of Haru’s favorites: it was based off a photograph Haru had taken years ago on the day Minori was born. Makoto holding his daughter closely to his chest. The stark contrast was hard to capture: Makoto’s broad shoulders and large height was a lot compared to little Minori with her fiery red hair. But he thought it turned out pretty nicely.

The next one, well, that one Haru had to recreate in his own mind: all he had was what Minori had told him. He sketched a four year old Minori standing on Makoto’s toes as he twirled her around, teaching her how to dance.

As for the last picture….that took some time.

Minori just stared at it for a long time. It wasn’t quite the reaction Haru had expected: he was banking on this being her favorite. So when she just stood there, shocked, he hoped that he had done her favorite picture justice.

A painting from the photo of Haru and Makoto at the beach, laughing.

Eventually, she turned up and looked at him, lips splitting in a bright grin. “Teeth,” she laughed.

Haru’s vision went a little blurry with tears as he swallowed thickly. “Yes. Teeth.”

She took two steps and crashed into him, wrapping him in a tight hug. “Papa, this is so wonderful.”

He could only nod, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder.

There was a tap on his back and the two of them looked up to find Rin, smile a little melancholy, but still warm. He gave Minori another congratulation before he looked behind them and pointed to the wall near the entrance to the outdoor patio. “I think that one might be my favorite,” he whispered, all choked up.

And when Minori turned around, smile brightly, her tears completely gone.

A painting of Haru and a young Minori, the first time in the pool.

“It’s us,” she said quietly, coming to wrap her arm around Haru.

For Haru, it was a memory dear to his heart. Makoto and Gou were there for most of her baby firsts, but Haru will never forget that they allowed him to be the one to swim with her for her first time in a pool.

“You probably don’t remember this,” Haru began, “But—”

“My first time in a pool,” Minori finished, flashing him a shaky smile. “I remember.”

He leaned over and pecked her on the forehead before he felt a tug to his sleeve. When he looked around he found Ran smiling at him, her thumb tossed over her shoulder toward the small, circular sun room that had the best view of the ocean from inside. “His hand is right there,” she smiled, “I could just grab it, like he could take me anywhere.”

Haru felt Minori slip out from under his arm slowly, dragging her heeled feet in a slow click-clack along the hardwood floors to the sun room.

It had taken some time, but Haru had finally finished that portrait of Makoto. Hand outstretched, ready to pull him back to reality like he always did. Always.

“You did good, Haru-nii,” Ran whispered.

“Yeah,” Minori agreed. “He really did.”

.

.

“No! Haru, are mackerel cupcakes seriously on the menu?”

“Yes.”

“Gah! They were bad enough at our wedding!”

“Nagisa thought they were good.”

“Yeah, I thought they were good!”

“Me too.”

“Same.”

“Minori, Sousuke, you  guys aren’t helping.”

“Oh, hush. Here, try this avocado cupcake.”

“Avacado? What!? No!”

“It’s a seasonal special.”

“This restaurant is going to _tank_ —oh shit, this isn’t too bad.”

“Told you.”

“Shut the hell up.”

.

.

“Race you.”

They were taking a late night walk through Iwatobi, trying to calm down after all the excitement that was Minori’s graduation party/Haru’s restaurant debut. Well, he thought they were relaxing. But apparently she wanted to race.

“We’re only a mile from the school,” Minori went on. “We could…sneak in. Have a race.” They still had that outdoor pool, despite having full access and regular practice at Sasabe’s pool center.

“That’s breaking and entering,” Haru chastised, but he couldn’t deny it had an appeal. Besides, he’d had his fair share of breaking and entering for the sake of swimming.

“Not really,” Minori claimed, digging through her purse for her lanyard. “I still have a key.”

“I thought you were supposed to give that back.”

“I will! Tomorrow. After we race.”

He didn’t argue anymore.

Because today was a special occasion and he didn’t really know what was to come of it, Haru had worn his jammers under his pants: he had hoped they’d all want to go to the beach after the party, but that hadn’t happened. Minori laughed at him, but in the end she pulled her dress over her head to reveal her own swimsuit.

Maybe he had rubbed off on her over the years.

As they walked up the pool, Minori declared, “100 meters, freestyle.”

But Haru simply jumped in the pool, swimming back to the edge. “Nah,” and he flung water up to splash at her. “Backstroke.”

“Ooh,” Minori taunted, but jumped in the pool anyhow. “You want to take a backstroke pro on? That’s some courage right there.”

“I won a medal at the Olympics for backstroke.”

“Yeah. _Silver.”_

“You only have silver medals too, you know.”

Minori grinned, splashing him in the face. “One of us ought to win first, don’t you think?” and she took the proper position against the wall. “On three, okay?”

“Okay.”

“1!”

“2.”

“3!"

.

.

They ended up taking a lazy pace together, side by side, floating on their backs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's all done!!!!! thanks for reading I hope you liked it :)

**Author's Note:**

> don't look at me I can't believe myself. I know I just wrote free! fanfiction and I'm trash but here it is. There will be another part or two, hopefully I can explain everything as it goes on. Hope Haru wasn't terribly out of character, he gets butchered a lot, so hope I did him some justice. let me know if you actually want me to continue it lmao


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